Add Fireworks to your Patriotic Party with a Scrumptious Star-spangled Flag Cake

We’re proud to celebrate the great gift of freedom every July 4^th with fun, family — and watching lots of fireworks! Safely, of course.

The last thing you want to do when you’re having a blast is spending all day in the kitchen making dessert!

Declare your independence from difficult desserts with this 4th of July cake that comes from Oklahoma’s own, The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond!

Ingredients:

Cake

• 2¼ sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature, plus more for the pan
• 3 cups sugar
• 6 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 cup sour cream (not low-fat), at room temperature
• 1½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
• ⅓ cups cornstarch
• 1 tsp. kosher salt (use ¾ teaspoon regular salt if kosher salt is not available)
• 1 tsp. baking soda

Icing

• 1½ lb. cream cheese (3 8-ounce packages, not low-fat), at room temperature
• 1 lb. unsalted butter (4 sticks), at room temperature
• 1 lb. confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 1½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 2 half-pints blueberries
• 3 half-pints raspberries

Directions:

1. For the cake: Preheat the oven to 350-degrees. Grease and flour a 17-by-12½-inch sheet cake pan. (Note: this recipe may be halved for a smaller pan, as this recipe feeds an army.)
2. In a bowl with a mixer, mix the butter and sugar together on high speed until light and fluffy, about a minute or so. Add the eggs, two at a time. Mix after each addition. Add the sour cream and vanilla.
3. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cornstarch, kosher salt and baking soda. Turn the mixer to low and gradually add the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, one scoop at a time. Mix after every addition. Keep adding the flour mixture until just combined. Do not over mix!
4. Pour the thick cake batter into the prepared pan. (It’s much thicker than regular cake batters.) With a knife or offset spatula, spread the cake batter evenly over the pan.
5. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 20 to 30 minutes. I baked mine for exactly 20 minutes, so you probably want to start checking then.
6. For the cream cheese icing: Add the cream cheese and butter to the bowl of a mixer. Whip to combine. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix until thoroughly combined, scraping the sides once during mixing.
7. Put about ½ the frosting on the cake. Mark off the area of the stars with a toothpick. (No need to be proportionately accurate; just guesstimate.) Prepare a pastry bag with a large star tip and fill up to 2/3 with icing. Fold down both corners to keep icing from splurging out the top.
8. Grip the folded-down end tightly under your fingertips and start squeezing two lines of frosting at the bottom of the cake. Make two rows of raspberries on the cake, then add another two lines of frosting.
9. Keep repeating: two lines of frosting, two lines of raspberries, two lines of frosting, etc.
10. Fill the square in the corner with a nice layer of blueberries. With the star tip, squeeze little dollops of frosting all over the blueberries to look like stars.

One bite and your guests will be saluting your baking skills. Just don’t tell them how easy it was to make!