Flag Cake

This recipe comes from the NESTLÉ® website. I substitue homemade whipped cream for the whipped topping.

1 cup water
1 cup instant mashed potato flakes
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 2/3 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter or margarine, softened
4 large eggs
3/4 cup milk
2 cups (12-oz. pkg.) NESTLÉ® TOLL HOUSE® Semi-Sweet Chocolate Mini Morsels
1 container (8 oz.) frozen lite whipped topping, thawed
2 cups sliced strawberries
1/2 cup blueberries

PREHEAT oven to 350° F. Grease 13 x 9-inch baking pan; line with wax paper.
HEAT water to boiling in small saucepan; remove from heat. Stir in potato flakes until moistened. Cool to room temperature. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in medium bowl.
BEAT sugar and butter until crumbly. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition; beat in potatoes. Gradually beat in flour mixture alternately with milk. Stir in morsels. Spoon into prepared baking pan.
BAKE for 45 to 55 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 15 minutes. Invert onto wire rack; remove wax paper. Cool completely. Transfer to serving platter.
FROST sides and top of cake with whipped topping. Just prior to serving, arrange strawberry slices and blueberries on top of cake to represent the American Flag.

Dragon Cake

This dragon cake is really not that hard to make and the kids love it.

It is a modified version of this cake. It is made out of two round cake layers. We made ours out of red velvet cake because the boys wanted to cut into the red cake for effect. One layer just gets cut in half and is cemented together with icing. This is the body. The second layer is cut into the various pieces for the rest of the dragon. First cut the cake into thirds. For the first third, cut out the tail along one edge of the cake round, making a point at one in and curving around, making the tail thicker as you go. For the second third, cut in half. One half is the nose. The rest is cut in half, and these are the hips. The last third makes the rest of the pieces. You will just have to eye those...the head, neck, front legs and all four feet. Once you have it laid out, looking somewhat like above, frost with tinted icing the color of your choice. The ridges along the back are made from chocolate covered graham crackers, which are cut with a knife from one corner diagonally to the other corner, making triangles. They are just set into the icing. We made the triangles smaller as we got down to the end of the tail. The eyes are made of one marshmallow cut in half. A Hershey's chocolate Kiss is inserted into the marshmallow point toward the icing and the whole eye is then set into the icing. The nostrils are also made from chocolate Kisses inserted sharp end into the icing. The claws are made from almond slivers.
The wings are made of Fruit Roll-ups. They are rolled tightly along a skewer, and then the outside edge is scalloped to make it look like wings. These are added at the last minute as they tend to droop.
The flames are again Fruit Roll-ups cut in flame shapes and laid on the tray.

The knight is just a toy knight sitting on a layer cake covered in green tinted coconut and chocolate bar hunks for rocks. The serving knives can be turned into swords with just a little aluminum foil wrapped around the end of the handle.