Instructions

For the stripes:

1. Grease and line with parchment as many 9 inch round cake pans as you can. Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter mixture and mix until combined.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients. Alternate adding the milk and dry ingredients to the egg mixture. Mix each addition until combined.
4. Add the dye drop by drop and stir by hand. Add dye until you get the right color. (What you see is what it will look like after baking as well.)
5. Weigh the amount of batter that you have and divide it by 7. (I ended up using 200g of batter per layer). Use this amount in each of your cake pans. (Re-use the cake pans if you have to- they bake and cool fast since they are so thin).
6. Bake until the cake springs back when touched in the middle and shrinks away from the edges slightly. Turn out the cake layer on cooling racks and gently rmove the parchment paper. Cool the layers completely.
7. Stack the cakes with clean parchment between each layer, wrap in plastic and freeze.

For the stars (blue portion):

1. Grease and line a six inch round pan with parchment .Preheat the oven to 350° F.
2. Cream the butter and sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla to the butter mixture and mix until combined.
3. Sift together the dry ingredients. Alternate adding the milk and dry ingredients to the egg mixture. Mix each addition until combined.
4. Mix in the blue dye drop by drop until you get the right color. Fill the pan about ⅔ with the batter. (You will have some batter left over- make some cupcakes!) Bake until a toothpick comes out clean and the cake springs back when touched in the middle (about 30min) Let the cake cool completely. Wrap and freeze.

For the butter cream frosting (white stripes)

1. Beat butter for a few minutes with a mixer with the paddle attachment on medium speed.
2. Using low speed, add 6 cups of powdered sugar until the sugar has been incorporated with the butter.
3. Increase mixer speed to medium and add vanilla extract, salt, and 4 tablespoons of milk/cream and beat for 3 minutes. If your frosting needs a more stiff consistency, add remaining sugar. If your frosting needs to be thinned out, add more milk.

For the assembly:

1. Do not thaw- remove the cakes from the freezer and begin working. Frozen cakes are easier to trim and cut.
2. Trim the blue cake down to 4 and half inches diameter. (Use a bowl or something that is this size as a template) You use the blue cake to size a hole to cut in the center of four of the red cakes.
3. Then stack the cakes with the first 3 red cakes on the bottom and the 4 with holes in them on top, using buttercream between each layer.
4. Check the height of the blue cake against the hole you created and trim it if necessary. Then drop the blue cake into hole. Cover the top and sides with buttercream and decorate as desired.