“The flag is the symbol of the nation’s unity, for it, beyond any doubt, represents all the citizens of Canada without distinction of race, language, belief or opinion.” Honourable Maurice Bourget, Speaker of the Senate, 1965
In Canada we celebrate our Nation each July 1. Our Canadian flag is a very simple design . . . red panels on each side of the flag, in the middle white with a red maple leaf in the centre. I THOUGHT this would be an easy cake to make. I thought wrong. Very wrong.
After the success of our American Flag cake tutorial that we put out for the Forth of July last year (2013), I knew that this year, I HAD to make one for my country! When I started out, I thought it would be super simple, and I would find success the first time out. Not-so-much. 6 practice cakes later, I had finally nailed it, and it was ready to be filmed for YouTube stardom!
I wanted a very distinct maple leaf in the centre of the flag, and with that, I caused myself a problem. The maple leaf kept coming out of the second bake missing sections of the leaf, or looking like a red blob. I tried cutting the maple leaves out of regular cake, using cakepop mix, and I tried prebaked sugar cookies, until finally, when I had almost given up, I thought I would try freezing the section I needed for cutting the leaves out. Thankfully, it worked!
Canadian Flag Cake
Ingredients:
- Prepared 10″ red cake (any flavour)
- 4-5 cups prepared vanilla cake batter
- Red Maple Leaf sprinkles
- Prepared white buttercream
- Prepared red buttercream
- Maple leaf cookie cutters (small 2″-3″)
- Bake and allow 10″ red cake to cool completely.
- Prepare vanilla cake batter.
- Find the centre of the red cake, by using a ruler or other measuring device. Mark the centre with a toothpick. Do not remove this toothpick.
- Continue to use toothpicks to mark these measurements: two inch circle in the centre of the cake, and a one inch ring around the outside of the cake.
- Using a sharp knife, follow you cutting guides to produce a one in ring, and a centre 2 inch “tube”.
- Remove outer ring from the cut cake, and place back into a 10″ baking/cake pan. Remove two inch centre piece, and place in centre of baking/cake pan. Measure to make sure that the centre toothpick is in position.
- Freeze remaining cake portion by placing into the freezer for 30-60 minutes.
- Place a thin layer of cake batter on the bottom of the pan, between the two red segments. Use a small utensil to smooth the batter on to the bottom of the pan, creating a thin layer of cake batter.
- When cake portion is frozen (step 7), remove from freezer and cut out angled slabs of cake. Using a maple leaf cookie cutter, cut out angled maple leaves. Place the maple leaves into the centre of the vanilla cake batter. Complete until there is a ring of maple leaves in the centre of the cake.
- Top maple leaves with additional vanilla cake batter, using as much as need to cover the maple leaves. Gently smooth the batter out, making sure to fill any gaps/holes between the red portions of the cake.
- Bake cake again for 60-80 minutes at 350F or until vanilla cake is golden brown.
- When the cake is finished baking, all to cool and level off vanilla portion to be flush with the red portion.
- Cover top of the cake with a thin layer of white buttercream.
- Using piping bags fitted with Wilton #21 tip (or other small open star tips), using a zig zag motion, pipe zig zags up the sides of the cake, and towards the centre about two inches. Switch to alternate colour, and repeat around the outside of the cake.
- Pipe a maple leaf in the centre of the cake (around the centre toothpick).
- Apply maple leaf sprinkles as desired.
- Serve immediately and/or refrigerate for 2-3 days in an airtight container.
Happy Canada Day!!
Hi Jenn, My son, Nathaniel (6 years old) is a devoted follower of yours! We just became permanent residents and he asked me to make this cake to celebrate on Canada Day. Quick question – the cake looks quite high. How deep was your cake pan? And do you think it might work in a springform? Thanks for the excellent tutorial.
P.S. Nathaniel says he loves watching your videos.
Hi there…congratulations! Welcome! The cake is high..you want to make sure you use something with 3″ sides. A springform pan should work..you might want to adjust according to the diameter of the pan. Thanks so much for watching!
Hi, great tutorial so glad I found it!
My good friend is moving back to Australia so I am going to make this Canada leaf cake but iced in the Australian colors! So when making the 10″ round cake. Did you bake it all as one cake? My cakes tend to rise poorly. My oven always seems to get to hot. Real pain. I’ve tried putting wet strips around the edge. Works a bit sometimes. Any thoughts?
Yes, the original 10″ round cake was baked as one cake. Wet strips work really well….but take a while longer to bake the cake (but don’t worry about that). If your oven runs hot (check it with an internal thermometer) lower the temp, and bake for longer than the recipe requires.
Thanks! Also did you use your vanilla cake recipe you posted in your comments below for the red cake? That only makes 4 cups? How can I get to the 6 cups needed?
Thanks!
You make a batch and a half of the recipe.
So I made the red cake and it didn’t raise enough. I used 6 cups in a 10×3 pan came up an 1″ shy or so off the top. Cakes just never seem to raise properly. Any thoughts on how i could correct it? I did get a maple leaf cutter set and there’s multiple sizes.
You could try using a smaller cutter. This cake took me 8 tries to get to the point where I could teach it in this tutorial, so I’m not going to lie and say it’s an easy one 🙁 Make sure you cover everything in batter before baking it the second time and that should help as well.
Hi, could you please let me know what you used to colour the vanilla cake mix red? My past experiences have resulted in a muddy pink rather than red. I would love to make this cake for my Nephew’s Bon Voyage cake as he is heading to Canada on a four year working visa from Australia. Thank you.
I use americolor gel paste or wilton color right.
Hi Jenn! I’ve watched probably all your videos:)
I tried to make the flag cake but my red faded when I rebaked it..
I don’t know why.. It was a gorgeous red after the first bake, but when I rebaked it with the white batter it when a kind of brown.. I tried lowering the heat in the oven but it didn’t work.. Any tips?! Thanks so much!
The colour of the cake should not have been affected in any way…so that’s really weird. The vanilla cake keeps it moist while it rebakes and it you shouldn’t have had any problems. The outer edge of the cake that touches the pan may change a bit, but that happens when you bake regular cakes too. Wish I could be of more help.
Hi Jenn. Question when you say 4-5 cups of vanilla batter and about 5-6 cups for red cake, do you mean a liquid measuring cup, or a dry measuring cup full of batter? Mary.
What does the ingredient vanilla do? Does it make a difference whether you add it or not? (When my mother bakes she prefers not to use vanilla.)
I saw the video and I’m curious about something… what did you do with all that extra cake batter?
I always use if for other cakes I have on the go.
Do youthink the recipe for the cake really matters? I was thinking in using red velvet and white vanilla. I ask this because a tried dipping some pieces of already baked hearts in a cake and they ended up rising too much i had to cut the top.
The recipe is the most important part.
Hi !
I want to bake this cake for a friend that is coming back to France from Canada, could you please give me your recipe for the simple vanilla batter (I don’t like mixing recipes etc.), in grams if possible ? 🙂
And also i have a pan that’s 10 inches, but i’m not sure if its deep/high enough?
Thank you,
Maya
Here’s the cake recipe, http://cookiescupcakesandcardio.com/?p=2687 Here’s the conversion link http://cookiescupcakesandcardio.com/?page_id=3348
Thanks a lot, one last question : is the batter from the recipe you gave me enough for the overall cake (red one + the additional batter for the “white part’ of the flag), or would I need to double it?
Thank you 🙂
Oh and also, does the fact that the maple-leaf is frozen affect the cake as a whole? I mean doesn’t it kind of soak the batter around the leaf during the baking?
No it’s fine..it stays moist.
You’ll probably need to double it.
Hey Hey,
First of all, i love your cakes and website.
I want to make a cake, from a flag with
horizontal stripes. Can you make a video about it,
if it is possible for exemple, a cake from the
Surinam or Ghana.
Greetings from Holland
What an awesome cake.
Can this be done with a rectangular cake?
Yes, it definitely could be!
This is genious! Im going to do a somali version of the cake asap!!!!! thanks i love your tutorials. watch u all the way from italy 😀
Thanks for watching!