Whether you’re having a cozy little family cook-out or a big race day celebration, let’s not forget the reason for this holiday – Memorial Day is observed on the last Monday of May (May 25th for 2009) and commemorates U.S. men and women who died while in military service to the country – and there’s no better way to show your patriotism than to proudly display the good ‘ole Stars & Stripes, and we have one delectable way to do just that with a mouth-watering home-made Flag Cake – a perfect desert for the spring and summer months (think 4th of July).
What you’ll need is one package store bought cake mix – lemon, yellow or white – and the needed ingredients to bake it, which are listed on the back of the box (generally water, eggs, oil), and one 9″x13″ rectangular cake pan. Now for the cake decorating ingredients: 2 quarts of fresh strawberries, 1 quart of fresh blueberries, 2 packages of cream cheese, 1/2 cup powdered sugar, 1 can of cream cheese flavored cake icing, optional: 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla flavoring (clear only).
Bake the cake and let it cool fully (this can be done the day before and refrigerated for decorating on the day that you will be serving it). Let the cream cheese sit on the kitchen counter until it is room temperature, then place both packages of cream cheese in a large bowl and add the cream cheese flavored icing, use a fork to combine and add the (optional) vanilla flavoring and about half of the powdered sugar, combine until smooth and spreadable (add more powdered sugar to taste, but you do not want to overwhelm the cream cheese flavor, you want the icing to be sweet, but not too sweet for the fresh fruit). When the icing is fully spreadable you can then fully ice the outside of the cake, then regrigerate the cake briefly while you do the next step. Rinse the blueberries and strawberries, pat dry, cut the top stems off of the strawberries then slice the strawberries lengthwise into very thin slices (approx. 1/8th inch thick). Now, it’s time to decorate!
First, place the blueberries in a line starting at the top left corner of the cake and continue across about 6 inches, place a line of blueberries along the left-side edge of the cake going down about 4-5 inches (to the halfway point), now make a line of blueberries towards the center of the cake to complete a rectangle. Fill the area in with blueberries, but leaving areas for the white icing to show through as “stars”. Now, place a line of strawberries along the remaining top edge of the cake, place another line of strawberries along the bottom edge of the cake, place a third line extending from the bottom edge of the blueberries across the cake. To be accurate, you need to place two additional lines of strawberries between the top & middle lines, and another two lines between the middle & bottom lines. The completed flag should have 7 red stripes and six white stripes.
When you are done, you will have a fresh & utterly delicious dessert that serves the day quite magnificently!
