This American Flag Cake is a soft, tender vanilla cake topped with a Lemon Swiss Meringue Buttercream and all the berries! Look no further than this cake for the perfect July 4th Centerpiece!
Preheat oven to 350°F (either convection or regular)
All ingredients should be at room temperature. Sift the cake flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In another bowl whisk together the sour cream and milk. Set aside.
Spray baking dish and set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer) cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add the extracts with the last egg.
Alternately add milk and dry ingredients, beginning and ending with dry.
Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake immediately. Bake in preheated oven until a cake tester comes out clean, approximately 20-25 minutes. Be careful not to over bake or it will dry out.
For the Optional Simple Syrup Soak:
In a small pot mix the water and sugar and heat on high just until it comes to a boil. Remove from heat and cool completely.
You can add a little lemon juice or vanilla extract if you would like! Gently soak your cake with a pastry brush. Keep the rest of the simple syrup for cocktails! ?
Prepare Remaining Ingredients:
While your cake is cooling, prepare the Swiss Meringue Buttercream from scratch or refresh buttercream that you made in advance. Once it has come together and is nice and light and fluffy, add your lemon curd. If you are using the lemon curd from the lemon bars, mix the curd a bit in a small bowl with a spatula to loosen it. If you add the cold, stabilized curd to the silky buttercream, you might get lumps!
Prepare a piping bag with your tip of choice. I used an Ateco 885 tip for the stripes and a Wilton 2D for the stars. I would have preferred to use an Ateco 842 or 843 but my closed star tips are at work.
Slice your strawberries. I sliced them about 1/8 inch thick but the thinner you slice them the more movement you’ll achieve in fanning them out.
Assembling the Cake:
Spread a thin layer of the buttercream on the cake using an offset spatula. Pipe a border where the blueberries (stars) will go. I made mine in the top third of the cake. Pipe the stripes.
Fan out the strawberries and then transfer them to the cake using a small offset spatula or knife. I alternated one strawberry with one raspberry and then repeated until I got to the end of the row. I then started with the opposite berry so that I didn’t end up having a line of raspberries in my flag. It’s all in the details!
Serve immediately or wrap well and refrigerate. The buttercream will taste best at room temperature but it is up to you!