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Fourth of July is upon us which means it’s time for some Fourth of July desserts. I have a few on this blog but today’s recipe is for red, white and blue trifles. This recipe was on the verge of being a cake fails. If you don’t know, “cake fail’s” is a series where I take the recipe’s that I screwed up on and tell you why.
This Fourth of July dessert was originally supposed to be a flag cake. A yellow cake that is frosted with cool whip and decorated with strawberries and blueberries to look like an American flag. Well, I looked and I didn’t have enough strawberries for that. I thought I did. How about a mini cake with cool whip, strawberries and blueberries? Well, that would be great if I didn’t screw it up. More on that later. No problem though, all I gotta do is just turn the cake into crumbs and layer that cake into a trifle. Lemme show you how I did it.
Fourth of July Desserts – How I Made The Trifles
I won’t go into too much detail about how I made the cake. Check out my How To Make a Fluffy and Moist Cake post to get some tips on how to actually make the cake. Or you can use leftover cake crumbs.
The one thing I do want to touch on is that I use buttermilk. If you do not have buttermilk, you can always use regular milk (can be non dairy) and a tbsp of vinegar or lemon juice. Or what you can also do is use buttermilk powder. This way you can only make what you need so none is wasted. You can order that here.
So, originally when I was going to make the mini cake Fourth of July desserts, I wanted to make the cake into 2 layers and then cut those layors into squares. But that didn’t work and I can tell you why I think it is.
It is so important to make sure that your cake it cooled completely before cutting. I was kind of in a rush and thought that I would take a short cut and cut the cake while still a little warm. Bad plan. See, when a cake is warm, it’s at it’s weakest state. So the risk of crumbling, tearing or otherwise breaking it is high. So when I went cut my cake with my cake leveler, it tore.
No problem, just put that all into a bowl and break it up into crumbs with your hands. Then the rest is easy.
The red, white and blue elements are cool whip, strawberries and blueberries.. The amount of each element that you use depends on the size of the jars you are using ( I used 8oz jars) and also your personal preference. What I did is make the cake layers and the Cool Whip layer even (maybe a half an inch to at inch thick) and then 4-5 blueberries a layer and 4-5 strawberry pieces.
As far as the strawberries go, I cut each strawberry into planks, and then cut each plank into 6 pieces.
These Fourth of July desserts are super easy. First get some mason jars. And then start layoring. The biggest thing to try to do is to make sure your cool whip dollops end up in the middle so nothing gets on the side of the jar. If some does, you can grab a damp paper towel and wipe it off. The amount of layers you do will depend on the factors that I mentioned before. But I would say shoot for 2-3. What you can also do to make things neater is to put the cool whip in a piping bag. That way it can just be piped neatly into the jar.
Other Fourth of July Desserts
On this blog, I also have a few other Fourth of July desserts that I want to tell you about. Both being iced cream and one being a recreation of a popular summertime treat.
Fourth of July Desserts – Red, White and Blue Iced Cream
This homemade iced cream recipe has a cheesecake iced cream base with cherry cheesecake iced cream and blueberry cheesecake iced cream swirled in. I should note that it does require an iced cream maker to make this one.
Fourth of July Desserts – Chipwich
This is a simple recreation of the popular “chipwich” iced cream sandwich. It was made with store bought vanilla iced cream and homemade chocolate chip cookies. I then rolled the exposed iced cream in red, white and blue sprinkles.
And that’s it! That”s how you take a recipe that was a failure and turn it into something amazing. Leave me a comment for any questions that you might have and also let me know your favorite Father’s Day Treats. Follow me on Facebook, Instagram, pinterest , twitter and snapchat to see what I’m up to next. Remember, don’t be afraid to “bake” a mess. And I’ll see you all next time.
Red, White and Blue Trifles
Yellow cake crumbs layored with cool whip, strawberries and blueberries.
Ingredients
Yellow Cake
- 1 stick of unsalted butter
- 1 cup of Granulated Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 cup of Buttermilk
- 2 cups of AP Flour
- 1 tsp of baking soda
- 1 tsp of Baking Powder
- 1 tsp of Salt
- 1 tsp of Vanilla Extract
Other Toppings
- 1/2 of a Cup of Cool Whip
- 4 Strawberries
- 20 Blueberries
Instructions
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350•, Mix up of buttermilk if you don't have it on hand = 1 Cup of milk and 1 TBSP of vinegar or lemon juice. Also, mix up your dry ingredients and prepare a 9x13 inch baking dish by spraying with non - stick spray and set the aside.
- In a large bowl mix up the egg, sugar, vegetable oil and vanilla extract until all combined.
- Add in the dry ingrediants in 3 stages alternating with the buttermilk. Mix at each stage until combined before adding more.
- Pour the batter in the dish and even it out.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until golden brown around the edges and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean with just moist crumbs.
- Let cool completely.
- After the cake is cooled use your hands to tear the cake into crumbs. Place these crumbs into a bowl and set aside.
Layering
- Cut up the strawberries into small bite size peices.
- Spoon in the cake crumbs into the jar in an even thin layor.
- Top with thin layor of cool whip.
- Top with blueberries and strawberry peices.
- Repeat this layoring 2-3 more times.
- Enjoy.
Notes
Leftovers will stay good in the fridge for up to 1 week.
If you have any questions or comments please don’t hesitate to leave a comment down below, message me on instagram, facebook or leave me an email.