This Year You Should Light Your American Flag Cake.
Every year around the middle of June, my inbox is inundated with cake recipe press releases, each boasting new and exciting takes on the patriotic dessert. I usually ignore them because flag cakes have been beaten to death, but America has really outdone herself this year and she deserves a cake – an unprecedented cake, a flambé flag cake.
Why flambé an American flag cake?
Flambé is a classic French method in which food is soaked in strong alcohol and set on fire. Ethanol burns brightly, leaving behind a caramelized dessert and thick alcohol syrup. (It is a misconception that all “alcohol burns” as it requires at least 40% ABV to ignite; once it falls below this mark, the flame will go out, but the remaining alcohol may still have an ABV. Sometime in the 40s )
Most flag cakes are sugary and monochromatic, all ostentatious and empty, but the charred fire from the fire and bits of rum soften all that sugary sweetness and add depth, turning the cutesy goofy dessert into something with flavor, character, and pizza (and lightly toasted strawberries). ). Plus it looks impressive!
What kind of drink should I drink?
Many flambé recipes call for “normal” rum at 45% ABV or so. This works if you’re going to heat the rum before you fire it, but we’re working with cake and the hot rum will melt the buttercream and sink deep into the cake before you can ignite it. A super-strong rum like 151 is the way to go, as it ignites almost instantly, even on a chilled cake (which we’ll get to shortly).
It’s true that 151 is a little more “dangerous” to work with, but on a scale of one to illegal abortion, that’s like three. As long as you pour the rum on the cake before you light the flame, you’ll be fine. (And if you want to add more rum so your flame can burn even brighter and stronger, just do it from a smaller secondary container or you risk the flame going up the booze stream to a bottle that could explode in the blink of an eye. Your hand.)
How to make a flag cake
To make the flag cake, you will need a plain white cake with a buttercream rim (to keep the rum on the cake). You can either make your own cake from scratch or buy a ready-made sheet cake from the grocery store (which I did).
If you’re making a cake from scratch , you can borrow from a king cake and bake a little plastic baby inside one of the layers for a fun twist. Whoever finds a child in his piece of the pie must keep it forever, even if he does not want it, even if he did not want any pie from the very beginning, even if the pie was forced on them against their will. (However, stab the child while cutting the cake and you’ll go straight to jail.)
Once you have your layer cake, all you have to do is take some blueberries and strawberries and arrange them on top of the cake so it looks like an American flag. (I say “vague” because you can’t fit 13 strawberry strips on a cake.) Leave the blueberries whole and group them into the square in the top left corner. Slice the strawberries, then cut these slices in half before laying them out in as many horizontal lines as will fit on the cake.
How to flambé a flag cake
Once your flag cake is decorated, place it in the freezer for a while so the icing doesn’t melt as you flambé. Half an hour to an hour should be enough. Take a bottle of extra-strong rum (like 151) and pour some into a squeeze bottle or similar container so you can channel the drink between the strawberries—into the “rum gutters” if you like. You will also need a candle or lighter, something long to keep your hand away from the flame. Add rum to the rum chutes, then light the rum.
The rum will burn brightly, gently toasting the berries and melting the sugar into the buttercream to create a sticky, almost browned, candied crust. The rum also soaks into the top layer of the cake, creating a decidedly grown-up dessert with plenty of deep, caramelized rum flavor.
Serve and enjoy the cake right away while you still can. (Who knows! If SCOTUS continues on their current path, this cake may one day become illegal .)