American Flag Cake

5 from 1 vote

This colorful and delicious American Flag Cake is the perfect recipe to celebrate the 4th of July! It’s a super moist sheet cake with a cream cheese frosting and topped fresh berries arranged like the American flag!

Prep Time30

Cook Time30

Waiting time30

Total Time1 30

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: American

Servings:

Calories: 545kcal

Author: Katalin Nagy

Equipment

Ingredients

For the half sheet cake

220 g Vegetable oil
400 g Granulated sugar
4 Eggs room temperature
240 g Yogurt, thick Greek or Turkish style room temperature
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
375 g All-purpose flour
2 teaspoon Baking powder
2 teaspoon Baking soda
1 teaspoon Salt

For the cream cheese frosting

600 g Cream cheese full fat (33%+) eg. Philadelphia
200 g Mascarpone full fat (41%+)
100 g Powdered sugar sifted

For the strawberry and blueberry decoration

500 g Strawberries medium sized strawberries cut into half
100 g Blueberries

Metric - US Customary

Instructions

Start with making the half sheet cake

Heat oven to 180°C / 356°F and line a Half Sheet Pan with parchment paper.
Whisk together the room temperature yogurt, eggs, sugar, and oil. Then add the vanilla extract.
Sift the flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda together in a separete bowl.
Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients using a Rubber Spatula. Mix just until combined.
Pour the cake batter into the prepared pan and smooth the top with an offset spatula.
Bake the cake at 180°C / 356°F for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Let the cake completely cool before frosting. No need to remove it from the pan.

Prepare the cream cheese frosting

Whip the cream cheese, mascarpone, and powdered sugar with an electric mixer for 2-3 minutes, until fluffy. Do not over whip as it can become runny.

Assemble the American Flag Cake

Spread about half of the frosting on the surface of the sheet cake in a thin layer. Then put the rest of the frosting into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle tip.
Arrange the strawberry halves and blueberry pieces as seen in the picture according to the American flag. There should be 50 blueberries and 7 horizontal lines of strawberries.
Pipe the remaining frosting in between the lines of strawberries.
The cake can be served immediately or refrigerated for 1-2 days.

Notes

Ingredient notes:

Measure your ingredients with a Digital scale for accuracy.
For the sheet cake, use room temperature ingredients.
For the cream cheese frosting, use high fat ingredients.

Baking technique notes:

Make sure you read my Expert tips section above to maximize your success. A short recipe alone is not enough to cover all the necessary details and science behind baking.
When baking the sponge layer, be careful not to over bake it. Over-baked sponge cake can become too dry.
Cream cheese frosting is very easy to overwhip. So when whipping the frosting, be sure to stop as soon as the mixture has reached a fluffy consistency (this will take 2-3 minutes). It will not get stiffer after this point. In fact, if you overbeat the frosting, it will only get runnier and then break.

Nutrition