Fourth of July Flag Cake - DIY Something Delicious

A Fourth of July flag cake is the perfect way not only to decorate for your Independence Day party and provides a tasty treat to serve at the end of your celebration. This flag cake is a cinch to whip up and will completely delight everyone who sees it -- and eats it!

Here's what you need to make a flag cake:

Long rectangular 9" x 13" white or yellow cake

At least 3 cups of whipped cream

1 ½ cups Blueberries

1 quart Strawberries

If you plan on making the cake from scratch, a yellow cake is your best bet. Here are the ingredients for a basic yellow cake:

2 cups cake flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

3 large eggs, room temperature

2 teaspoons vanilla

3/4 cup milk

Start out by preheating your oven to 350°F. Before you start mixing up your cake, grease and flour a 13" x 9" cake pan and set aside.

In a medium sized bowl combine your flour, baking powder and salt. Sift and set aside.

In a mixer cream together butter and sugar until it's it looks fluffy and delightful. Mix in each of the three eggs, one at a time and then add the vanilla until totally combined.

Grab your flour mixture and slowly add it to the creamed mixture. Add a little flour, then a little milk, and then a little more flour until the mixture is completely combined and smooth as butter.

Pour the batter into the cake pan and pop it into the oven to bake for 30-40 minutes. Keep an eye on the cake to make sure it doesn't burn, and when it looks done test the middle with a toothpick to see if it has cooked all the way through. When it's ready, take it out of the oven and let it cool completely.

Once the cake has cooled, "frost" the top with the whipped cream. This is the white on your flag so make sure you have a nice layer of whipped cream before you start adding berries.

Now it's time for the berries. Add blueberries, one at a time, in a neat vertical row along the left hand side of the cake pan. I chose to do 6 blueberries down and 8 rows across to represent the stars on the flag, but how many you use is up to you; the number of blueberries is only important if you want to get technical about the number of states in the union. I didn't get too technical.

Cut the stems off your strawberries and slice them in half so you can lay them face down on the whip cream. These are your stripes. Make sure the strawberries you use are all approximately the same size or it will throw off the stripes and make your cake look wonky. No one wants that.

Place the strawberries across the top of the cake in a horizontal row, one row at a time until you fill up the pan. I made 5 rows of strawberries, but it doesn't have to be perfect as long as it looks pretty.

That's it! You've made a beautiful Flag Cake for the fourth of July! The guests at your Independence Day party will love you forever, and no one has to know just how easy it was to make.

Allison Czarnecki is the founder and editor of the lifestyle blog Petit Elefant. She lives in Utah with her husband and two children, and writes daily about -- among other things -- style, home, travel, and family.