Sunday Sweets: Miss Independent
July 4, 2010 Today we get to look at some of America's best birthday cakes. :)
By CC (aka Cake Central) member sugarchiconeI don't feature sheet cakes too often here on Sunday Sweets, but this one is postcard-perfect; and all buttercream! Those are some sweet piping skills.
Another that looks almost too perfect to be real:
By Spring Lake CakeLove the bow.
By CC member tcamPlus, this cake was beautiful *inside* as well as out:
Surprise!And then CC member themaytrix took the hidden flag idea to the next level:
Sweeeet.If you read the Reader's Digest, you may remember this couple:
This is Ralph Archbold & Linda Wilde, who play Ben Franklin and Betsy Ross in Old City Philadelphia. When they got married (on July 3rd, no less!) this was their wedding cake:
And here's the gazebo the band would play in:
Proving that simple can also be stunning:
Believe it or not, those daisies are also gumpaste. Gorgeous!
Here's a cool idea, and executed flawlessly:
CC member mimiguk wrote the words to the national anthem as the stripes in the flag. Painstaking, I'm sure, but oh-so-perfect! (Just looking at all that script makes my hand cramp. Yow.)And speaking of our national anthem, here's a cake celebrating its writing:
By MixinVixen
By KupKake TreeHappy Belated Canada Day! Sorry again for almost forgetting it on Thursday.
Fortunately, most of you Canadians both know what your national anthem is AND have a sense of humor, but a select few who don't on both counts were "patriotic" enough to write angry e-mails and leave goofy cake blogs over an imagined maligning of said anthem. [sigh]
So, for those still here who were offended: wrong song, and we certainly meant no offense. We love Canada. We love Canadians. Your bacon is awesome, William Shatner is da man, and we like that Celine Dion song...um...well, her music is Ok. So, yeah. Hope the beaver cake makes up for everything. Wreck on, eh?
Reader Comments (125)
@brian--What do you consider to be America's birthday? Or are you objecting to using "America" as a synonym for the USA?
My birthday's on the 3rd and my grandma made me a cake for my birthday in 1976 in the shape of a star, with a icing-molded Betsy Ross sitting in the corner, with the flag draped off her lap across the cake. I wish I could find pictures of it, it is one of my fondest memories of Grandma's cakes. We kept Betsy in the freezer for YEARS, lol!
As a Canadian, it's my patriotic duty to apologize. :)
Thought the original post was hilarious, and thanks for pointing out the funny Epcot song. Sorry about my humourless mates up here.
Freakin' LOVED that beaver cake!!
I hate to complain, but the National Anthem is incorrect on the cake. We did not have a "perilous flight," but a perilous FIGHT. Aside from that, these are all gorgeous.
Wow - that wedding cake is absolutely amazing! I am amazed that they actually are eating it - it looks too good to cut into!
On the national anthem cake is that a question mark at the end of the song???
I hate to say it, but the one with the gum paste flag and flowers should be a WRECK not a sweet! The flag does not have 15 stripes...and any 1st grader can tell you that the top and bottom stripes are red, not white...the "ArtistIn Training" should know better.
- Elle
As a Canadian, I think we have great senses of humour! And because of that, most of us get tired of hearing the same few jokes over and over again. That's why I think people get their heckles up rather easily. Most of us rarely hear any good, fresh jokes because most people outside of Canada don't know anything about us and thus rely on stereotypes.
Now, I don't think the post was as bad as all that, (I didn't think it was particularly funny, but nor was I offended) but those kinds of jokes happen so much that it's easy to have a kneejerk reaction.
Though I admit getting offended over a humour cake blog when one only has to read a few posts to know that this blog is all in good fun is silly. I know from following this blog for awhile now that the intention of Jen would never be to offend her readers. So I know that even if anything rubbed me the wrong way, it was totally accidental and won't think twice about it. However, I do know where my fellow Canadians are coming from.
So! Read a few news articles about Canada and crack a fresh joke! (Hint: no politeness, beavers, lumberjacks, saying 'eh' or maple syrup jokes allowed.) I guarantee we'll take it wonderfully.
Hi Soariee,
Okay. I see your point about Jen's jokes on this post. However, on the original Canada Day post, we joked about Canada Day being an American holiday and we mangled the Epcot Canada song. Now, it may not have been overwhelmingly funny, but I though it was completely unique. I do seem to be wrong a lot lately though...
john
I really gotta check CW on a daily basis instead of saving up the wreckage for heftier doses.
I teach a class on American Culture and these Sunday Sweets would have gone great with my lesson about July 4th and the red, white, and blue on Tuesday. Good thing I still have another class this week.
To John (The Hubby of Jen):
You aren't doing anything wrong. You rock. *HUG*
I'm Canadian and have to say I found your posts hilarious about the Canada day cakes! It's all good...we don't tend to hold grduges and those Canadians who got fussy must have just been having a bad day. The cake with the US flag layers inside is beyond inspirational...now I'll have to attempt a Canadian version of that! Song mockery of the Epcot Canada song is always welcome :)
I don't understand. Doesn't anyone realize that when The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park, and Cake Wrecks use Canadian stereotypes (moose, beer, snow, maple syrup, log cabins), they're MAKING FUN of the stereotypes themselves, not Canadians?
I'm sure many Americans are just as tired over "Yank" jokes -- pick up yer banjo, har har! All of America looks like New York, or else Colorado! Americans don't speak anything but English, durp! And they're all fat, har har! -- but I'm not about to get my hackles up about it on a cake blog.
One of the lines from Epcot's "Canada" song is definitely "You're a lifetime adventure for the traveler." It has stuck with me lo these many years, and yes, when I first heard it as a kid, I did think it was the Canadian national anthem.
But then I also thought that the first time I walked in on someone singing "God Bless America", since all I heard was that mountains and prairies and oceans part, which sounded a lot more like Canada to me.
Cutest beaver ever! Waiting though for someone to get offended over a perceived double entendre. Awkward colonials, indeed...
PS Please do a tour to Canada. I'm sure we can wreckerate some beaver tails in your honour.
Oh my gosh!! Imagine my surprise when scrolling through these pics, to see my own pop up!! I enjoyed making the Fort McHenry cake, although I didn't really make it for a fourth of July event. The theme of our annual country fair was "celebration" and I wanted to do something more than the stereotypical wedding cake or other accepted celebrations. Although far more technical and clean in execution, I ended up with the second place ribbon, since my theme was more obscure than the "wedding dance" cake that won first place. This is still one of my favorites though!
I understand the flag is a symbol of the country that it represents. I understand the stars represent the states and the stripes the 13 original colonies. (Noting however, that one poster did write that there was a 15 stripe flag.)
Why is it offensive to some that there are the wrong number of stripes on a cake? And starting with the wrong color? (No, I never knew that and I have a master's degree in teaching.) That seems petty. For pete's sake, the whole thing is going to get cut up and eaten. Is that desecration of the flag?
The whole draping thing eludes me as well. Don't athletes drape their sweaty selves in flags quite often at winning celebrations? If there is some kind of traditional rule, I'd be curious to know.
Whipped Bake Shop put paper scrapbook flowers on STRAIGHT PINS ?!? in a cake?!
Pretty, but deadly.
It's such a shame that the baker of that hidden american flag cake didn't put some white chocolate chips into the blue cake to make stars.
I LOVE these cakes and the flag cake IN the cake was awesome...and then I counted the stripes. I have big question marks over my head, to have gone to ALL that trouble and then do 15 stripes?????
Just commenting to say, wow, Mimiguk. Awesome.
A) John should not be apologising for Jen's original post. Show some accountability.
B) A sarcastic "What-were-you-too-obtuse-to-understand-that-it-was-a-joke-so-lighten-up" apology does not ring true. If you think it was funny and that you meant nothing malicious, stick by it. If you're genuinely sorry, sound like it.
C) People are allow to have opinions and to be offended. They are not "hating", but sharing their opinions because they cared about what you said.
D) One Canadian cannot speak for all Canadians, so stop telling other people to lighten up or learn about sarcasm. They're not idiots, they just didn't find it amusing.
E) Be grateful for comments and emails. It means that people read and like what you do. Most of the comments I've read have been well-reasonsed and not abusive. I cannot speak to the emails, but I hope they were as well.
I only write because I care.
Just so you know, Francis Scott Key wrote the Star Spangled Banner during the Revolutionary War, not the War of 1812. :)
Star-Spangled Sheet Cake:
while my hand is cramping, my
mind is boggling. Wow!
@Anony
If you feel you have the right to correct everybody, then at least have the GUTS to use your name and not cower under the mantle of anonymity. Nobody takes cowards or the self-righteous seriously, and *especially* not self-righteous cowards. (take the hint, dear)