Happy 4th of July!

Lots of red, white, and blue food has been circulating around the Internet lately ahead of the holiday. I saw some cute dipped strawberries with white chocolate and blue sugar, but nothing really caught my imagination until I saw a marbled red, white, and blue cake. It seemed simple but fun to make. Here's the original recipe from Tablespoon. Frankly, it's more of a process than a recipe, because the original relies on a box cake mix and store-bought frosting. That's just not how I roll these days though. Have you ever looked at the ingredients in those pints of frosting? It's a lot more than butter, sugar, vanilla, and salt, let me tell you.

Anyway, based on my desire to make this cake (and, more importantly, for saving our bacon during the recent power outage), I invited my BFF Amanda and her boyfriend Brandon over to cook out on the 4th. I made hamburgers, roasted rosemary potatoes, sangria, and, of course, "firecracker" cake. I wanted to get some sparklers for the top, but I just didn't get it done. The original was in a bundt pan, and I don't own one yet, so I used a regular cake pan instead.

my firecracker cake interpretation

What I learned is that it takes a whoooole lotta food coloring to color cake batter (and frosting) a strong red and a strong blue. Because I was rushing a little, and because I didn't realize it would take SO much food coloring, my cake came out a little more tribute to the '80s than a tribute to America. A little more pink than red, really. But, it tasted great, so that's what really matters. I used an amazing frosting recipe that I got from my college friend Lauren's blog, which is great- she's such a foodie. Her recipe is for whoopie pie filling, but it made enough to frost the 12-inch cake with a little bit left over. This is some of the best frosting I've ever made or eaten, so you should try it for your next dessert that requires frosting- cake, cookies, cupcakes, whatever.

a shot of the marbled interior

This would be fun in a number of colors for kids' birthdays, etc. based on the same principle of coloring white cake. Just be prepared for a lot of food coloring and a lot of stirring.