Celebrate the Fourth

Hey everyone,

As per custom, Matt and I celebrated the fourth with the Cottle family. For those of  you that don't know, it's a continuation of a long-standing tradition in my family to watch fireworks at Murray Park. My great aunt and uncle lived across the street from the park for years. For as long as I can remember, my family always spent the fourth at their house. We would have a croquet game (yes, people still play that), a barbecue, a baseball game, night games with the neighborhood kids, our own fireworks, and finally, the big firework show.

This party took place all my life and even before I came along. It was ALWAYS a favorite of mine and my cousins. There were few family parties that outdid the fourth celebration. :)

However, around 2005, my uncle died and shortly thereafter, my aunt followed. Their kids sold the house, and the tradition ended. Around that same time, I started college and met Michelle. She and I quickly became very close friends...the second year I knew her she invited my then boyfriend and I to her parents' for the fourth. We accepted, and when I asked for the address, we discovered that her parents live across the street from where my relatives had lived. :D

I was so happy to continue my family's tradition and watch the Murray Park fireworks!

:)

For the past couple years, I've attempted to use my supa dupa awesome camera to take pictures...to no avail. Too blurry, not bright enough. I couldn't figure it out.


Then, this year, I had an epiphany.

It's called Google.


Have you heard of it???



After approximately 1 1/2 minutes of research, I was ready to try it out.

Here was the result:

Aaaaaand, my best of the night. Believe it, this is straight out of the camera. :D!!!!!!!!!

Flag Cake...Happy 4th!

Sorry this post is late, guys.  I tried to make a smaller version of this cake yesterday, in hopes of using that one to post.  I didn't want to make two full-size cakes....who would eat all of that?!? Well, okay, maybe I could...Anywho, so that one did NOT turn out at. all.  I was so bummed, because I knew I wouldn't be able to post the cake until the 4th, today.  Ah, the best of intentions.  But I tried the cake again today, full-size, and it worked soooo much better!

A little late, but still delicious! Here's how to make your own flag cake!

Start out by doubling a cake recipe...okay, honesty time.  I made these "cake-mix style" and if you do that, just make two boxes.  Make one box (so, two 8" cakes) with only red food coloring, and one box with one 8" blue and one 8" white.  If you have white food coloring, I suggest it, it makes a difference. :)  Here are my cakes, ready to be assembled, flag-style:

First things first: level all  of your cakes. I took the very very top off mine, you shouldn't need to cut off very much.  Just enough to give a nice surface to frost.  Now, cut your red cakes and your white cake in half, horizontal.  This should give you four layers of red to work with and two of white.  Put one of the red aside, you won't need it (snack pile, anyone??). Once you've done that, go ahead and stack a red layer, apply filling (I just used buttercream frosting), then a white layer, filling, and then another red layer. It should look like this:

You should have a thick layer of blue left (cuz you didn't cut that one, right...right?), one red, and one white left.  Take a 4" cookie cutter, or a 4" biscuit maker, or anything that will suffice that is 4", and cut a shape out of the red and out of the white.  What's left of those colors, put aside.  Your spread should look like this:

Put a layer of "filling" on the red layer that's already on the stack of cake.  Then, lay the blue on top (I turned mine over so that the top of the cake would be perfectly flat).  Inside the hole, take a small spatula or a knife, and line the inside of the hole with frosting.  Place the WHITE layer in the hole.  You don't want to place the red in first, because then your stripes will be off.  Once it's in, spread a small amount of frosting on top of the white circle.  Then, place the red on the white.  The hole in the blue layer should be filled and the cake should look like this:

Now you're ready to frost the outside and decorate if you wish! I just did mine plain white.  To be honest, by the time I got to the "decorate" part, I was tired!  Plus, I feel like it's more fun that way...you take this "boring" looking cake to a party and when you cut into it, voila!

 I'll post some pictures in a little bit of what the cake looked like inside.  Now, I must go, or I'll be late for the BBQ and fireworks! :) 

Sneak peek....how cute is this????

Can you guess what it is????  ;)



Here is a sneak peek of a post I will be doing in the next day or so....I found it on a blog and I can't wait to try it! Stay tuned!!