Strawberry Flag Cake

Missy, here. We spent the July 4th holiday with my husband's family in south Georgia. My sister and brother-in-law had us all over for lunch. It was amazing! My brother-in-law always makes fabulous meats on the smoker. This time we had two types of ribs, Boston butt and grilled chicken.

The main thing I wanted to share today, though, was one of the desserts. My sister-in-law Traci made a delicious strawberry cake! And it turned out so pretty.

I didn't think to get the recipe, and waited too late to get it before my post. But while we were there, I did ask if she used the recipe where you poke holes and pour Jello on top of the cake to soak in. (It was really moist, so I knew she had put something in it.) She said her recipe called for pureed strawberries with juice poured over the top.

So I went looking for recipes. This one at the Duncan Hines site was the closest I could find. Click here for the recipe.

Traci used whipped topping on top. And yes, she had 50 blueberries! :)

So yummy and moist! I hope to try making it soon.

Pioneer Woman Cooks Sparkle Cake in Raspberry and Peach

Hello, everybody! The Fresh Pioneer is back and I know you're thinking, "wait, weren't you just here??"
  I was! Thanks for noticing! Now, my last post I mentioned Pioneer Woman Cooks had put up some recipes for Easter/ after Easter and I was determined to make her Sparkle Cake even thought it might end up a "fail". I won't post this picture again because I don't want any comparisons (haha!) but here's the Sparkle Cake Recipe.

(This is her ham. My didn't look like this but it was still soooooo gooooood.) 

 In her recipe she actually makes the angel food cake and although it did look VERY EASY, I was really pressed for time. not that I have such a busy life, but as usual, I'd left my YBC post until the very last day! (WHY DO I DO THAT?) So, Tuesday afternoon at 4PM, I realize that I should take some shortcuts. So, I bought my angel food cake and the rest is just as the recipe reads, except I also decided to change the flavor.

 In the original, she uses strawberry, but I LOVE raspberry and my husband loves mango. Since we were having guests, I thought, "Let's make two!"
(What's better than one Sparkle Cake? Duh, TWO Sparkle Cakes!)
You're going to need an angel food cake, a packet of jello, and some frozen fruit. Also, heavy cream for the topping.

 So, let's start with our angel food cake. *MMMMMMMM*

 Flip it upside down (fat side down) and gently saw off the top about three inches from the bottom.
                                     
Yes, I KNOW it's crooked. So sue me.
                                 
Now, gently insert the knife about a half inch from the outer edge and cut all the way around, not reaching the bottom. A few pokes won't hurt, but try not to saw all the way through to the foil or you won't have anything for the filling to rest on when you spoon it inside.
                                       
Again, gently saw through the cake about a 1/2 inch from the inside edge. Now you have to concentric circles. Start to peel out the inner cake. I was afraid it would all come out in a big blob, leaving me with chunks of cake, but it wasn't too hard. I pulled at it from the bottom, near the lower layer so I could control how much came out.
                                      
OK, so our cakes have a neat little trench to be filled!

 Take the fruit from the freezer, so they're at the ready.

 But one cup of boiling water into a bowl.
 This is a fascinating picture, no? I could stare at it all day.)

 Add the package of raspberry (or whatever flavor you desire) jello and stir until dissolved. (In my picture, I have a larger package, so I just used half. If you buy a small package, use the entire thing.)

 And the mango is started...

 As soon as the raspberry Jello is dissolved, stir in the raspberries. This is like adding the cold water. Instantly, the Jello should start to set.

 Same thing with the peaches. Oh, you're wondering why it's not frozen mango? Well, apparently there was a run on frozen mangoes in our grocery store today. It's a conspiracy, I'm sure of it! They must have known I was going to try something with frozen mangoes!
 (Uhhhhh, I swear that is spelled MANGOS but it keeps blinking at me... so I'll put in the 'e'. But I'm fairly certain that's not right. )
  Anyway, I grabbed some frozen peaches. Everybody loves peaches... right?

 Just in case you think I forgot, here's the other angel food cake.

 In about five minutes, the Jello is set!

 Here's the raspberry.

 Spoon the mixture into the middle of the angel food cake.

 Replace the top.

Same with the peach-mango. 

 Now, whipping cream! Whip into stiff peeks.

 I had this idea of tinting it blue and making it sort of Fourth of July-looking, but my kids said it was too early. (But take note, this would be a great cake for the 4th!) Anyway, I tinted it pink.

 Whipped topping covers a multitude of sins, as the picture shows. It was soooo pretty! (The afternoon sun was coming in and making it hard to take the picture, but maybe you can still see...)

 The pink was light and delicate. This is probably the prettiest cake I've ever made.

                                                                     NOM NOM NOM.

 I was fully prepared for the cake to fall apart as it was cut, but it arrived on the plate basically in one piece.

 The inside was very flavorful, since it really only had half the water it needed for the Jello recipe.

 And I was also prepared for the entire cake to collapse after I cut the first slice. Not too bad...

 And here's the peach-mango cake. We tinted it a very light yellow but you probably can't tell.

 I thought of filling the hole with foil and making the center a place to set a fancy fruit design, but our guests were almost here so, I just plopped on the peaches.

Close up! This was definitely my favorite of the two. Really fun flavor and different from chocolate/vanilla/strawberry...

I also wanted to share our first try at Jan's smoothie recipe. It was SO DELICIOUS! And yes, I had to make this much just so everyone could have a small glass. But it was so healthy and good for the family, I'm more than willing to put in the quality time with my old blender.

I had to get a picture of this fine smoothie 'stache. He had no idea what we were laughing at, but he very sweetly waited until I could snap a photo!

  I'll leave you with one more fun picture....

It's my third Austen Takes the South book, already up on Amazon for pre-order! I was checking something else and the title popped up... I thought, "What? I just turned that girl in!" But there she was, sweet and sassy. It's sort of a bare bones place-holder, but it does have the blurb in case anyone wants to take a peek.

 All right, my friends! Have a wonderful week and I wish you the very best Spring weather!

I'm baaa-aaack!!! And Fourth of July cake ideas when it's 107F

Hello everybody!! The Fresh Pioneer is back and she's not feeling so fresh.

 

 There's a heart wave in these here parts and I'm thinking 107 is just plain too high. As someone said on twitter, "I don't mind sweating in certain circumstances. But just standing around is not one of them."
 Yup. That sounds about right.
Anyway, we had a great time camping and saw lots of great little buildings like this.

                                             I wanna ring the bell like Quasimodo, baby.

I am not a happy traveler (I'm an okay camper). I HATE being in the car an I can't read without getting sick so I tried to write a sentence and stare out the window, write a sentence, stare out the window, write a sentence... You get the picture. URRRG.

But the kids had a great time in the new car, which had several movie screens that drop down an wireless headphones. It was shockingly exciting. I mean, this family so low tech.... We have one cell phone, one small TV with no cable, and one stereo. When we bought this SUV I mostly was looking at number of seats and safety.  I had no idea that I should have been looking at DROP DOWN MOVIE SCREENS. Happy kids. For hours. And silence for me.

That charming caretaker's cabin with all the room? The one that slept ten? The one next to the old electrical station? The one that had insulators and other odd pieces of pottery from last century scattered all over? It had these so very charming double hung windows. So, so very charming. So, so very not easy to open. It took an act of God and all His angels to get a breeze in that place.

But you know, heat stroke doesn't really mean much when you get memories like this.

To be honest, I wasn't even here for this moment. My sister and her husband, Jim,  and my husband took the kids to Olive Lake for a fishing trip. The adults were kept busy untangling lines and putting on bait and handling poles... And the kids caught a lot of fish. Me? I was at home in the quiet cabin in the middle of the forest, writing. How awesome is that??)

 

 

 

They came back happy, exhausted and sunburned. My sister then organized dinner over the fire, ending with s'mores. (No, you can't have her. She's mine.)

Anyway, as I mentioned, it's hideously hot here. Fourth of July is coming and I wanted to make a cake WITHOUT raising the temperature in my kitchen. I may just not survive that. Not even with the promise of cake. So, one store-bought cake. It's flat. Vanilla, I think.

One tub of Cool Whip, on packet of blueberries and one of strawberries. My kids thought that was a tub of Mayo. They'd never seen Cool Whip. I know, I'm a terrible mother. Don't call CPS, they're all introduced now and are big fans of... whatever it's made out of.

Slice the cake in half, lengthwise, with a long, serrated knife.

Fill with a layer of Cool Whip, lay on the top. Have dainty-handed child place blueberries along the seam. Scold said child for eating lots of berries. Sneak a few of your own.

Cover the top with the white stuff. It helps if you start with a frozen tub, since it's 107F outside and 140F in the house.

Artfully lay on blueberries and strawberries. I would say like the American flag, but hey, we're not picky. Whatever floats your boat.

 

Fourth of July is a special day for this family because we have a naturalized citizen. A long time ago, a teenage boy came to a country where he didn't speak the language . All he knew, was that he could pick fruit for more than a teacher was paid in his country. For a family that didn't get enough to eat on a daily basis, it sounded like heaven.

 

He was the second oldest of eleven and although he didn't get the chance to go to school, he desperately wanted his little brothers and sisters to have that chance. He also had a sister who was very sick and the medicine was more than they could possibly borrow. He and his brother talked it over, and he volunteered to leave his home. His mother cried for weeks.

 

He traveled through California, then Oregon, then Washington. He sent his mother almost every penny he earned picking apples, trimming grape vines, harvesting onions. It was a hard and lonely life. He wanted to go home. He felt lost. One day a friend invited him to church and he went, because he was tired of being one young man in a group of young men.

The service was in his language, the music was familiar, the people welcomed him. For the first time in years, this young man felt like he was home.

 

His new friends encouraged him to study. He told them he had never gone to school, but they said here in America, it was never too late. Here you could get permission to sit in the back of the night classes at the community college. You didn't get credit, but it was free. So, he took classes. English first, then science, then history, and all the other classes he'd missed when he'd been working to help the family.

 

He started working at the church as the youth group leader, along with his farm jobs. The director told him about the naturalization process, how he could apply for legal status.

 

That day, the day my husband took the oath of citizenship, a mutual friend named Sr. Kathy invited me along. She knew I had lived over seas and had struggled to adapt to other cultures. She though I would love to see this ceremony first-hand. Even now, fifteen years later, it moves me to think of those people standing there, from all corners of the world, and pledging loyalty to my country.

So, I made a special dish for hubby and called him out of the garden where he was moving sprinklers. He wasn't  happy about getting his picture taken when he was covered in water and dirty, but we're all friends here at the Yankee Belle Café. And I wanted you to celebrate this Fourth of July with us, natural born citizens and naturalized citizens alike.

  Have a wonderful Fourth!!

P.S. Remember you can download my new book 'Leaving Liberty' for FREE this week!