American Flag Cake is the perfect patriotic dessert for your Summer cookout. Everyone will love how it looks and enjoy the taste!
I love easy Cake Recipes and this recipe is a quick and easy cake that you will absolutely LOVE! For more holiday desserts, try my 4th of July Cupcakes or my Chantilly Cake.
Sabrina’s American Flag Cake Recipe
I choose strawberries and blueberries in this sheet cake recipe to mimic the American Flag colors because this patriotic recipe is the perfect dessert for Memorial Day, Fourth of July or any other day you want to celebrate the red, white and blue American Flag. The best part of this recipe is it takes no artistic efforts at all (you can count on that, as I have zero artistic abilities). This quick and easy dessert will be a Summer holiday BBQ favorite to not only make but for everyone to enjoy!
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter
- 1 1/3 cups sugar
- 4 large egg whites
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 cup whole milk
- 2 1/4 cups flour
- 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 16 ounces Cool Whip , recipe
- 1 pint blueberries
- 2 pounds strawberries , halved
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 9×13 rectangular pan.
- To your stand mixer add the butter and sugar and beat them together until light and fluffy on medium speed, 2-3 minutes, then add in the egg whites one at a time 15 seconds apart along with the vanilla then lower the speed to low and add the milk until smooth.
- Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt then add to the stand mixer on low speed until just combined.
- Pour into the rectangular pan and bake, shake gently back and forth to make sure the batter is evenly distributed and cook for 30-35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Once cooled, spread cool whip over the top.
- Dry your fruit very well with a paper towel, place blueberries in top left corner, and arrange strawberries in stripes.
Nutrition
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Sabrina’s Tip
I keep the strawberries simply sliced in half because they release less liquid this way which will keep the top of the cake looking beautiful longer. If you slice the strawberries thinly, be sure to dry the slices very, very well with a paper towel and serve the cake immediately after decorating.
Table of contents
About This Recipe
Summer desserts are quick and easy and fun by nature and this American Flag Cake sheet cake recipe fits the bill perfectly for your 4th of July celebrations! Start with my easy vanilla cake recipe that I adjust just a bit for batter color. The blueberries in this recipe represent the stars, not in the actual blueberries themselves but in the white spaces between the blueberries. The strawberries do double duty creating the red stripes and the white stripes on the cake. You can either make the stripes by cutting your strawberries simply in half or you can thinly slice them and lay them on their side. This cake has both the look and the taste of a great holiday dessert!
Recipe Tips & Tricks
- Make sure your oven temperature is correct. An oven thermometer is an inexpensive but very important tool to keep in your kitchen to be sure you aren’t accidentally over or under-baking your food. You can use it in any closed cooking environment.
- Measure your flour correctly. This is the easiest place to have a baking recipe fail. To measure your flour correctly be sure you don’t use your measuring cup to scoop your flour. Use a spoon to spoon flour into your measuring cup, then level it off with a knife.
- If you’re replacing the eggs or butter in this recipe, make sure you’re not removing all of the fat because it helps keep the texture of the cake soft. I also recommend not using any butter substitutes, like margarine.
- Be sure to only stir in your flour mixture in your electric mixer until just combined. Overmixing the dry ingredients can cause your cake to be dry.
- If the cake falls upon coming out of the oven it can be because too much baking powder was used in the recipe. Be sure to level off how much baking powder was used in the recipe.
- Don’t substitute the butter, milk, or eggs for lower fat ingredients. The fat in this vanilla cake recipe helps keep everything moist and light.
- Try using buttermilk instead of milk, because the acid and fat in the buttermilk will work with the gluten to help give your cake a softer fluffy texture.
- Substitute part of the butter with vegetable oil.
- Using brown sugar in place of white sugar will add more moisture but it will darken the color of the cake.
How to Store
- Serve: This recipe can be served at room temperature for up to 2 hours. .
- Store: This cake can be refrigerated for up to 48 hours if decorated with cool whip or buttercream. If decorated with homemade whipped cream the whipped cream will deflate within 2-3 hours.
- Freeze: This flag cake can be frozen for up to 3 months. Decorate with cool whip and fruit upon defrosting.
Frequent Questions
Yes, if you’d prefer to use a cake mix you can use a white cake boxed cake mix and top with either cool whip or canned cream cheese frosting or vanilla frosting before adding on the fresh fruit.
You can also make this cake a layer cake if you would like. To do this line your baking pan with parchment paper to easily remove the cake from the pan and carefully remove the completely cooled cake from the baking pan. Slice horizontally through the middle of the cake and add the bottom layer back into the pan with buttercream frosting (adding fresh berries to the middle here would be delicious too) and top with the top layer of the cake before frosting and decorating as directed in the recipe card. Be sure not to add too thick of a layer of frosting in the middle as you won’t have space in the baking pan for the rest of the fruit
Yes, you can. I top this cake with some Homemade Cool Whip but you can also use store bought Cool Whip and fresh berries.
If you have any leftover frosting when you are decorating your cake you can use a star tip to create a border for the cake. This is only if you are using whipped cream or a frosting made with powdered sugar that has more structure than Cool Whip.
Variations
- Buttercream Frosting: Using Classic Buttercream Frosting is the easiest, room temperature friendly option but it is also a heavier option.
- Whipped Cream: In place of Cool Whip you can use Easy Whipped Cream but be aware that whipped cream that is not stabilized will not hold up after 30 minutes. I recommend using whipped cream only if the American Flag Cake will be served immediately.
Related Recipes
Favorite 4th of July Desserts
Photos Used In Previous Posts
where is cool whip recipe
Hi Helena, here is my Homemade Cool Whip recipe. Thanks for the 5 stars!
The cake is so fluffy and fun to make, especially with kids!
We made this last year and it was so much fun! Kids are excited to help me make them again this year! Yey!
Such an amazing dessert for Fourth of July!! Thanks so much for the recipe!
who really leaves a cake out for only 2 hrs?
Would a box of angel food cake work for this?
You could always just make the angel food cake and decorate the top with the cool whip and berries. I hope you enjoy it!
This is just perfect with Memorial Day coming up! And, I love that you have a homemade cool whip recipe. I definitely prefer the pure ingredients to the storebought version.
I’m the same. 🙂
Loved this recipe. I took the easy route and used box cake and store bought Cool Whip and it turned out great. Thanks for the recipe.
You’re welcome!
Such a great dessert for Memorial Day this weekend! Love how easy it is too!
Thanks, Lisa.
This is so light and fluffy! Perfect for Memorial Day weekend!
So glad you enjoyed it, Beth.
How perfect is this for the upcoming 4th of July Holiday!
Definitely perfect!