4th of July Sprinkle Cake
I love an excuse to make a festive dessert. Moreover I love an excuse to go to a party where bringing dessert and pawning off sweet treats on other people is acceptable. Real life - the struggle I have with loving to bake and loving desserts is going all in on a yummy pie or cake at home, and literally only having me andJordan here to eat it. & the real problem is we eat it. Everybody knows cake is like a once in a while think - not an eat it after dinner everyday kind of thing. So 4th of July is here, we’re having a big family get together, & I’m making a fucking cake!
This year I’ve learned the key to completing a good bake - Clear the schedule, take your time, & be patient. A very valuable lesson to learn since since I have full blown aspiration to be my family’s go to cake maker. Seriously - birthdays, holidays, superbowl parties, I want to be recruited for cake making! I’m convinced that all of my baking disasters (& there have been many) have all been the product of rushing it. I have a bad habit in the kitchen of just trying to get it done, or getting my hands in multiple kitchen projects at one time. It’s always a recipe for a disaster. But I stuck to my guns for this one - a 4th of July Sprinkle Cake with red & blue marbled cake and a strawberry cream layer. & the most fool proof buttercream frosting that I use as a base for every cake, cupcake, and cake-pop make in my house.
I wanted to go all out patriotic, and I love the whole trend of covering an entire cake with sprinkles. Red, white & blue sprinkles were perfect for a festive look. Not as easy to put on as I would’ve thought - it requires a scoop and roll on the icing kind of technique. Again, just a little patience is needed. Plus, the whole cover it in sprinkles thing makes a cake look pretty fun and they’re great for covering any icing imperfections. Just the festive decorating crutch my amateur baking soul was looking for.
Patriotic surprise #2 - red and blue marbled cake on the inside. One vanilla cake batter separated at the very last step to make one batch of red batter, and one batch of blue. As easy as adding a dab of food coloring. You can put dollops of both colors in your cake pan, & then swirl them together to create the marbling effect.
So fun fact - I definitely made this cake twice. First attempt was 4th of July, & 2nd attempt was to do it bigger and better. I went for it for the 4th of July, the cake turned out nicely (we all enjoyed it), but it had it’s imperfections. Round 1 wasn’t as great it could’ve been- the icing didn’t go on as smooth as I would’ve liked, and the cake wasn’t as tall as I had anticipated. Also, & I don’t know how, I didn’t mix my blue batter quite enough & I ended up dying my sister in laws mouth totally blue. Funny as hell for all of us, & thankfully she laughed too, but not intentional and not what I'd want my cake baking to be notorious for. Anyways, the decorating of the cake is what I wanted another go at, & I had plenty of patriotic sprinkles leftover, so I did it. I watched some cake decorating YouTube videos, and the morale of that story is WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEOS. There are so many good ones, but I had 3 major take-aways for setting yourself up for success when it comes to icing a cake - know how to apply a crumb coat, pipe on the frosting, and use a scraper. The days of doing all the shit with just a spatula are done and over with.
By starting with a crumb coat, you’ll be able to easily apply the final layer & make that final icing layer look so pretty. Use a piping bag with a long and thin tip to get the icing around the sides of the cake evenly, and spread it so it’s perfectly smooth with a cake scraper that’s at least 6 inches long. You can use the cake scraper to pull the icing around the cake, filling in any uncovered “holes”, and continue to move the icing around the cake until it’s totally covered. You’ll get a lip at the top of the cake that you can fold in towards the center, & smooth out with an offset spatula to make a perfectly smooth flat layer right on top.
For the Cake
1 stick of butter, room temp
1 1/2 c. sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 c. flour, plus a little extra for greasing the cake pan
1/2 tsp salt
1 c. milk
For the Filling
1 c. heavy cream
1 tbsp sugar
1/2 fresh strawberries, diced
For the Frosting
2 sticks of butter, room temp
4 c. powdered sugar
2 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp milk
Preheat the oven to 350. Grease two circular baking dishes with butter and add a heaping tsp of flour to each. Swirl the flour around the pan so it sticks to the butter. It should coat the bottom and sides of the pan. Dump out any extra
Put the mixer on medium speed and cream the butter for your cake for 1-2 minutes. Add in the sugar and baking powder, & cream them together until the mixture is whipped and fluffy (2-3 minutes). Add in the eggs and vanilla, mix on medium for another 2 minutes. Add in the salt, and then the flour. Mix on low until all the flour is mixed in. Add in the milk, and turn the speed back up to medium and mix for 2-3 minutes. All the ingredients should be mixed together, giving you a lump free batter.
Take out half of the batter and place it in a separate bowl. Add a drop of blue food coloring to one, and red to the other. 1-2 drops is all you should need inn each bowl. Stir until both batter have an even hue (no streaks).
Place large spoonfuls of batter in the baking pans, alternating between adding in blue a red spoonfuls next to each other in the pan. Swirl with a butter knife gently to swirl the two colors, being careful not to mix the colors. Place in the oven and bake for 35 minutes.
Clean out your mixing bowl as the cake cooks. Add in the heavy cream & sugar for the filling to the bowl. Whisk the cream on high until stiff peaks form. Add in the strawberries and mix them in gently just until they’re folded in. Place the bowl in the fridge.
When the cake is done cooking, let them cool in their pans for 30-45 minutes. Loosen the edges of the cakes with a butter knife and try gently lifting the bottom of the cake from the pan. Flip the cake upside to get it out of the pan, letting them continue to cool for another hour or up to overnight (just wrap in plastic if leaving them to cool overnight.
Add the butter and sugar for the frosting to the mixer and cream them together with a paddle attachment on medium speed. Place a towel over the bowl to keep the powdered sugar form spraying everywhere. Add in the milk and vanilla, and whip on high for 30 seconds.
Now assemble the cake -
Remove just the small tip of the dome so the cakes can a semi-flat top (no sharp peaks!). Flip both cakes upside down, placing one down onto the cake tray, slathering the filling on top, and leaving a 1/2 inch uncovered border around the edge of the base layer. Flip the second cake upside down, and gently place it on top of the filling. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Next apply the crumb coat. Place a cup of of the frosting on top of the cake, spreading it over the top and then down the sides of the cakes. The frosting will hang off the side of the cake as a result of spreading the frosting over the top. Push that frosting down the sides of the cake, and then spreading it across all the layer with an offset spatula. You can add a bit more frosting if needed (a tablespoon at a time), but you should be able to see the cake through the frosting since it’s such a thin layer. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Use a piping bag with a thing a wide tip to apply the rest of the frosting on the top and sides of the cake. Use a cake scraper to then spread the frosting around the cake so it is even and smooth. Do so by pulling the cake scraper towards you as you turn the cake tray, and let the lip over the top of the continue to get taller.
Once the sides a smooth, use your offset spatula to smooth out the top. Pull that tall lip towards the center of the cake so it flattens out, and use your offset spatula to spread the frosting on top into a smooth even layer.
Apply the sprinkles on the sides first. Get a scoopful and sort of push them around the base of the cake, working up the sides. Use a large handful at a time, tilting your palm and rolling the sprinkles over the cake. Finish by sprinkling them over the top.