Festive Cake

For the 4th I wanted to make something other than the normal flag cake with strawberry stripes and blueberry stars, so I decided to think about what would get eaten. Chocolate cake instantly popped in my head since this thing was going to have to feed a lot, and appeal to a lot of people. I still wanted the festive r/w/b theme so I busted out the old cake decorating skills. Okay it wasn't that long ago. April...2009...anyway, here's what ya need! Basically enough stuff to make two chocolate cakes (remember the trick about taking half the oil out and 2 T. of water!!!) (per cake of course)

Don't forget to level those cakes!

Slap some of that chocolate fudge frosting in between the layers then always start icing the top of the cake first. That way you can slop it down the sides and smooth them later! That, and b/c my cake lady said to. And I was paying her for the classes. So I listened.

Viola! Amazing. Use one of these spatulas and your icing will be super smooth. No knives. That's cheap. Okay...that was the boring part.

Now for the decorating!! I took a star tip (21, if you buy Wilton tips) to make the shell border first.

I took some good ol' Wilton gel food coloring, dyed a tub of white icing R W and B, and plopped it into three different bags with a thin round tip. I squiggled each color on the top border one at a time. I also added R W and B dots to the shell border.

For the star centerpiece I cut six strawberries in half and used five of the halves for the star points. I filled the center with blueberries and called it a day!