4th of July Flag Cake

Joshua saw a picture of an American Flag cake on the cover of a magazine last week and decided that we needed to make one for the 4th of July.

We used angel food cake for the cake itself.

Cool whip for the frosting.

He counted out the 50 blueberries.

And tried very hard to make 13 stripes alternating strawberries with no stawberries.

Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Icing

For Bill's birthday today, I made a carrot cake with cream cheese icing from scratch. I didn't get a picture of the cake, so here is a picture snapped while Daniel was napping and his attack dinosaur was standing guard.

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Ingredients:

4 eggs

3/4 cups vegetable oil

1 cup white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose baking flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

3 tsp ground cinnamon

3 cups grated carrots

1/2 cup applesauce

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1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour cake pans.

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2. In mixer, beat together eggs, oil, sugars, vanilla, applesauce. In seperate bowl, mix together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. Add dry mix to wet mix in mixer. Fold in carrots, pour into pan.

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3. Bake at 350 for 30-45 minutes.

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4. To make frosting: In mixer, 1 stick butter, 1 block cream cheese, 1 tsp vanilla and 4 cups powdered sugar - mix until frosting is desired consistancy.

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Yummy!!!

Blackberry Coffee Cake

Grandpa got back in town on Sunday night bearing gifts of fruit. He brought back a big container of blackberries and tells me they were sent with love from Aunt Oida in Atlanta, Georgia. This morning for breakfast, I stirred the blackberries with strawberries in some vanilla yogurt and granola. The kids were thrilled. But I still had a small mountain of blackberries to use.

Ingredients:

2 c. flour
1 c. sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 c. butter
1/2 c. chopped pecans
2 eggs
1 c. milk
1 tsp vanilla
1/3 c. brown sugar
1/4 c. flour
2 tsp. butter

1. Sift together first five ingredients, and put in large mixing bowl; cut in butter until mixture looks crumbly.

2. In another bowl, mix together eggs, milk and vanilla, pour over flour mixture and stir until just moistened.

3. Spread in greased baking dish (I used an 8x8 square dish), top with berries.

4. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar, flour and 2 tsp butter, mix with fork until crumbly. Add nuts to mixture. Sprinkle on top of cake.

5. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes.

*Important to note here, I accidentally used bread flour instead of all-purpose flour. I still thought the cake came out fantastic and probably would use bread flour again in the future - it was nice and light, not a heavy/gluey cake, but more of a light cake.