Besides the cake being decked out in red, white, and blue, we’re sharing our recipe for a classic white cake. It’s light, fluffy, and has white great color!
Prep Time20 minutesmins
Cook Time22 minutesmins
Additional Time1 hourhr
Total Time1 hourhr42 minutesmins
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Keyword: butter, easy 4th of july dessert, eggs, flour, ombre cake, powdered sugar, red white and blue cake, sour cream, sour cream cake
1cup (226g)butter2 sticks, softened to room temperature
1cup (236ml)vegetable shortening
1tspvanilla extract
7-10cups (791-1130g)of powdered sugar
Red and blue gel food coloring
4th of July sprinklesoptional
Instructions
To bake the cake
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Using butter grease the bottom and sides of an 8 inch round cake pan or springform pan and line the bottom with a round piece of parchment paper. To ensure even baking, place a bake even strip around the pan. You can make your own homemade bake even strip by cutting a towel or shirt to fit the size of your pan. Get the fabric really wet, then squeeze out the dripping water but do not squeeze it too dry. Secure the fabric around the pan with a safety pin.
In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and sugar, beat using an electric mixer until fluffy. Add in the egg whites, beat again.
Add in the sour cream and vanilla extract, mix until smooth.
1/2 cup (114g) sour cream, 1 tsp vanilla extract
In a smaller bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt, gently mix with a spoon. Gradually add half of the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, do not dump it in, rather take spoonfuls of the flour mixture and gently shake it over the wet ingredients, as if you were sifting in the flour. Fold in the mixture until no flour remains. Repeat with the other half of the flour, folding it in and scraping the sides and bottom of the bowl to incorporate everything. Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan, using a spatula to evenly spread it out.
1 cup + 2 Tbsp (135g) all purpose flour, 1 1/2 tsp baking powder, 1/4 tsp salt
Bake for 22-26 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Using a bake even strip will slow down the baking time, so if your cake is still wobbly in the center, allow it to bake longer.
Once the cake is done, allow it to cool in the pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, carefully remove the cake from the pan. If using a springform pan, remove the sides and bottom. Allow the cake to cool completely on a cooling rack. Once cool, remove the parchment paper round from the bottom of the cake. If you need to level the top of your cake, do so now using either a cake lever or knife. Wrap the cake really good in plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator. The cake will be good like this for up to one week.
30 minutes to 1 hour before you plan to assemble the cake, place the cake layers in the freezer. This will make them easier to frost.
To make the buttercream
In a mixing bowl, combine the butter and vegetable shortening, beat using an electric mixer until fluffy. Add in the vanilla extract. Begin to add the powdered sugar, about 2-3 cups at a time, mixing by hand. Continue adding powdered sugar until the frosting no longer looks wet and tastes good to you. Then beat the frosting with the electric mixer one last time to make sure the powdered sugar is really incorporated.
1 cup (226g) butter, 1 cup (236ml) vegetable shortening, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 7-10 cups (791-1130g) of powdered sugar
To frost the cake
Divide the frosting into 3 bowls, putting more frosting into 2 of the bowls and less frosting in one. Dye one of the bowls with more frosting red. Leave the other bowl with more frosting white. Dye the bowl with the smallest amount of frosting blue.
Red and blue gel food coloring
I like to assemble my cakes on a turntable. Using the white frosting for the inside of the cake, spread a small amount of buttercream on a 8 inch round cardboard circle. Place your first layer of cake on top of the cardboard. Put buttercream on top of the layer and spread it as even as possible with an offset spatula. Repeat for each layer of cake. Once all of the layers are stacked, it’s time to do a crumb coat. The crumb coat will help seal the crumbs in. Using your offset spatula, spread a thin layer of buttercream around the sides and the top of the cake.
Place the entire cake in the freezer for 20 minutes. While the frosting is hardening on the cake, prepare the piping bags. Cut off the ends of 3 piping bags, making a 1/2 to 1 inch hole in each bag. Fill each bag with buttercream, one with red, one with white, and one with blue.
Using some of the red buttercream, spread it evenly over the top of the cake, going down the sides a little. Next, pipe each color of frosting in a circle around the cake, with blue at the bottom, white in the middle, and red at the top.
Use an offset spatula to smooth and blend the colors. As you smooth, you will need to remove excess buttercream as needed. Continue to smooth using your spatula until you have you desired look.
Add 4th of july sprinkles around the top of the cake.
4th of July sprinkles
Pipe a blue border around the bottom of the cake if desired.