4th of July Star Cake {Tutorial}

So, my friends know I love to bake desserts. BUT, I’m not one for rolling out pastry or fondant. I am all about EASY food! {See my Pinterest Photo Board “Food Even I Can Make”: here} Maybe if I had the time I would, but I’m a single mom folks, AND I have a full time teaching job, so any time I find a recipe that requires little effort on my part, but LOOKS like I spent a lot of time creating it, is right up my ally! ;o)

SO, I found a “fun food” recipe book for kids and it had this really cool looking star cake and it was so easy to make, I had to try it!! Here is the final product & below are the super easy directions:

YOU WILL NEED:

• Your favorite cake recipe. (I used a strawberry cake for the 4th of July party, since it was red)
• White frosting
• FRUIT ROLL UPS (Yep, I said fruit roll ups! Red & blue, but any color you want will do)
• A STAR shaped cookie cutter {I used a 3” copper cutter}

I will assume you know how to bake a cake, and since I am no authority on it (I’m a ‘from the box’ kind of girl) if you want some extra cake baking tips, click here. 

I will focus on the stars! Once you bake & frost your delicious cake, it is time to roll out the fruit roll ups! {Pun intended}

Most simple directions EVER:

1. Unroll fruit roll ups.

2. Cut with {SHARP} star cookie cutter. {Fruit roll ups can be sticky}

3. Place on top of cake {or cupcake!}

READ THESE TIPS! {Trust me}

So, those directions could not be more easy, but I did learn a couple things to make it even easier:

• Keep the fruit roll ups COLD! It was warm at my house, but even room temperature, those things stuck together making them too sticky to unroll or cut. I kept them in the ‘fridge and then pulled them out one by one as I needed to cut them.
• Even cold, a SHARP cookie cutter works best! The roll ups WANT to stick together, so a sharp cutter and patient pulling apart of your stenciled cut out will do the job.
• If you can keep your cake cold/refrigerated that will make the fruit roll up starts easier to cut off the cake. Next time, I’ll use a smaller cookie cutter so I can have more stars on the cake and I won’t have to worry as much about where I cut the cake.
• Finally, I didn’t realize that PLAIN blue & red fruit roll ups would be so hard to find. I didn’t have time to shop around, so that’s why I have the multicolored stars, but I’m sure if you had time, you could find the perfect colors.

Here are a few more pics of the cake:

{If you want to learn how to make that sweet cake stand, click here!}

I’d love to see your version of this fruit roll up inspired cake decor! I am already thinking it would be fun to cut out red hearts for Valentine’s day and so many other shapes!!!

Happy Baking! xo

Linking up here: