I’m still working on getting all of my recipes copied over from my website to the new recipe blog.  In the meantime, I’ve prioritized my “standard” 4th of July recipe.  This is the one I’ve taken to our family’s Independence Day celebration for the past three or four years.  (This year I think I’m going to take something different, just for a change of pace.)

Basically, Kraft’s Wave Your Flag cake looked really festive, but it’s all artificial.  So I remade the recipe to use healthy, “real,” from-scratch ingredients.

Healthy Flag Cake

Healthy Flag Cake

Rachel Ramey

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Course Dessert, Holiday

Ingredients

  

• 2/3 - 3/4 loaf pound cake
• 4 cup strawberries divided (about 1 qt.)
• 1- 1/3 cup blueberries divided
• 4 cup Dole's Berry Blend or other 100% fruit juice
• 4 tsp agar powder -OR- 7 Tbsp. agar flakes
• 1 pint heavy cream
• 4 Tbs powdered sugar or mild-flavored honey

Instructions

 

• Slice pound cake 1/2 - 3/4" thick. Cover the bottom of a 9x13" baking dish with slices.
• Sprinkle agar over fruit juice in a pan and let soak for 15 minutes.
• Slice 1 cup of strawberries. Simmer agar in juice until dissolved (about 10 minutes for flakes). Let sit until thick, then stir in sliced strawberries and 1 cup of blueberries. Pour over pound cake and let sit until juice is firm.
• Whip cream until foamy, add sugar or honey and continue whipping until peaks form. Spread sweetened whipped cream gently over juice.
• Place blueberries on top of whipped cream to form the blue field of the American flag. Cut remaining strawberries into halves or quarters (depending on size) and place on whipped cream to form stripes.

Independence Pound Cake

If you want the cake part of your dessert to be healthy(ish), you’ll probably need to make your own.  This whole-grain version of pound cake was created specifically for this purpose!

Independence Pound Cake

Rachel Ramey

traditional pound cake, made with fresh whole wheat flour

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Course Dessert

Ingredients

  

• 1 lb butter 4 sticks
• 1 lb sugar 2 c.
• 1 lb flour 5-1/4 c. fresh pastry flour*
• 10 lg. eggs
• 2 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt

Instructions

 

• Grease and flour a 9" tube/bundt pan AND an 8x4" loaf pan. Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
• Cream butter.
• Add sugar and vanilla and cream again.
• Add eggs and mix.
• Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a separate bowl, then beat into creamed mixture.
• Pour batter into tube pan and loaf pan until each is about half full.
• Bake for 35-40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Invert onto wire rack to cool.

Notes

Pastry flour is ground from soft whole wheat. (White recommended.) The volume measurement would be different for a different flour.