red white and blue flag cake for fourth of july

Last year for the Fourth of July, my husbands parents were visiting from Hawaii, and his dad's cousin Holly invited us over for a Fourth of July party! His mom was going to make a curried rice salad, and I said I would make a cake. I pictured a red, white, and blue cake on the inside as well as the outside!

For the cake, I baked up my favorite vanilla cake (recipe in my book, The Hello Kitty Baking Book!) in two 8-inch round cake pans, let them cool, and then sliced them in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with fresh whipped cream, sliced strawberries, and fresh blueberries.

For the frosting I whipped up my cream cheese frosting (recipe also in my book!), covered the top and sides with a quick crumb coat, and chilled it for 30 minutes. Unlike most of my cakes, this one wasn't going to need a final coat of frosting, as I was planning on decorating the sides with red white and blue piping.

For the piping, I used a disposable pastry bag fitting with a medium star tip, and piped little "heart"s down the cake, alternating with blue and white frosting. These were going to be the blue and white star portion of the flag.

Then I did the same with red and white frosting, except I piped them from left to right to give me red and white "stripes".

I kept going from left to right, until I eventually had gone around the entire cake and was back to my blue and white piping.

All done!

I kind of think the piping looks like a knitted design, don't you think?

Holly's party ended up being amazing! They had everything decked out in stars and stripes, including the paltes, tablecloths, selfie props, and they even handed out red white and blue beaded necklaces for everyone to wear! So much fun!

Happy Fourth of July!

rainbow unicorn sugar cookies with royal icing

To go along with the rainbow unicorn cake that I made for my daughter's 8th birthday, I also made these rainbow unicorn cookies as party favors, and also to pass out to her classmates on the actual day of her birthday.

For the cookies, I used my favorite sugar cookie dough (recipe in my book!), rolled it out to about 1/8 inch thick, and used these adorable unicorn cookie cutters from Cookie Cutter Kingdom to cut out my shapes. Then I baked them at 350F for 10-12 minutes, until golden brown.

While the cookies were cooling, I whipped up my royal icing (recipe also in my book!). Then I used a disposable pastry bag fitted with a small round tip to outline each cookie with stiff white icing, before filling them in with runny white icing. Then with the rest of icing, I used Americolor gel-based food coloring to tint them yellow for the horn, and rainbow colors for the mane and tail.

I had originally planned to do each unicorn with several rainbow colors, but after icing a few, I didn't like the way they looked. So instead, I chose one color for each unicorn, and did multiple colors that way.

I wrapped each cookie in cellophane favor bags and tied with closed with raffia, so that they would be easy for her to hand out to her classmates (and so they would fit nicely in her party goodie bags!)

Happy Birthday, Miss Melodie! Hope you enjoyed your unicorns!

rainbow unicorn cake with fondant unicorn horn

Last year for my daughter's birthday, she requested a unicorn cake. (She always requests unicorns!) So I had made her this one, with a buttercream rosette mane and a handmade fondant golden unicorn horn. 

Well, this year she asked for the same thing! But pink. And with a rainbow mane. So I obliged!

As usual, she wanted a vanilla cake with strawberries and whipped cream, so I baked up my favorite vanilla cake (recipe in my book!) in two 8-inch round cake pans, cooled them, and then sliced them in half horizontally to give me four cake layers. Then I filled each layer with freshly whipped cream, and fresh sliced strawberries.

Next I covered the whole thing with pink cream cheese buttercream frosting (recipe also in my book!) - first with a quick crumb coat, then 30 minutes in the fridge, and then a final coat of frosting, which I smoothed out with a long metal spatula. Then I let the cake chill in the fridge overnight.

The next morning, I was ready to decorate the cake. I used black frosting in a disposable pastry bag, fitted with a small round tip, to pipe the eyes on the front of the cake. 

Then I tinted my "rainbow" colors with Americolor gel-based food coloring, and used a large tip to pipe the buttercream rosette mane. I only had enough frosting left for three colors, so I divided the remaining frosting and chose blue and green to go with the pink cake.

The final touches were the handmade fondant unicorn horn (you can see how I made it in this post) and the white fondant ears. Although, in hindsight I should have made the ears pink. Doh!

The last color would be white, for a few "pops" of small rosettes.

At least the white rosettes kind of match the white ears?

Anyway, she loved the final cake. Even though blue and green don't actually equal rainbow. But whatever, close enough!

For her birthday party, we just invited a few of her closest friends for a small party, and we had movies and pizza and video games. And cookie decorating. And unicorn cake, of course!

Happy 8th Birthday, Miss Melodie!!!