Flag Cake —rsquo; The Independence Day Spread, Made Again

Sven and I made our morning circuit — kitchen, back hallway, front porch, lakefront walk, kitchen again, breakfast for both of us. The same circuit every day for years. The repetition is its own grace. There are people who would find such a routine unbearable, and there are people who would find it salvific. I am the second kind. The routine is the rope I hold in the dark, and the rope is what gets me from one end of a day to the other. Mamma's hands shake more than they did last month. I do not point it out. I notice. I notice everything. The shake is small — barely visible when she is at rest, more visible when she lifts her coffee cup, most visible when she is trying to thread a needle. She still threads needles. She still bakes. She still calls me on Tuesdays at 10. The hands shake. The shaking does not stop the doing. The doing is what Mamma is. Karin and I talked Sunday. Stockholm in winter is dark. Duluth in winter is dark. We compared darknesses. We laughed. Karin said: "Linda, do you remember the time Pappa drove us to Two Harbors in a blizzard because Mamma wanted lutefisk?" I said yes. The story unspooled across the phone for twenty minutes. I had forgotten half of it. Karin remembered all of it. The memory was, briefly, complete between us. I cooked Grilled summer feast this week. Burgers, brats, corn on the cob, potato salad, watermelon. The Independence Day spread. The Memorial Day spread. Repeated as needed. Damiano Thursday. A teenage boy came in alone. He was hungry. He did not want to make eye contact. I served him soup. I did not make small talk. He ate two bowls. He left. The not-asking was the gift. The not-asking is sometimes the right form of attention. The teenagers know. The kitchen is the reliquary. I have used this word in the blog before. I am using it again because it is the right word. A reliquary is the container that holds the bones of the saints. The kitchen holds the bones of my saints — Pappa, Lars, Mamma, Paul, Erik, the first Sven, the second Sven. The bones are not literal bones. The bones are the marble slab and the bread pans and the glasses on the shelf and the wooden spoon worn smooth by Mamma's hand. The kitchen holds them. The kitchen is what holds them. It is enough. Paul is not here. Mamma is not here. Pappa is not here. Erik is not here. They are all here in the kitchen, in the smell, in the taste, in the wooden spoon and the bread pans and the marble slab. The dead are not where the body went. The dead are in the kitchen. Sven (whichever Sven I am living with at the moment) has the daily distinction of being the most consistent presence in my life. He follows me from kitchen to porch to bedroom. He sleeps within ten feet of me at all times. He notices when I am sad and he comes to put his head on my knee and the head is heavy and warm and the heaviness is the comfort. The dog is not a person. The dog is the only creature in the house, however, and the dog does the work that another person would do if there were one. The dog is enough. It is enough.

The grilled summer feast — burgers, brats, corn on the cob, potato salad, watermelon — asks for a dessert that is as unambiguous as the rest of it, something you can set on the table and everyone knows what it means. The Flag Cake is that dessert. I have made it for Memorial Days and Independence Days and the occasional Tuesday when the summer felt big enough to deserve it. It is the kind of recipe that holds a holiday the way the kitchen holds everything else: reliably, without fuss, because the repetition is its own form of love.

Flag Cake

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 30 min | Total Time: 55 min | Servings: 24

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 3 large eggs, room temperature
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup whole milk, room temperature
• 2 cups heavy whipping cream
• 3 tablespoons powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (for whipped cream)
• 1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries, rinsed and dried
• 2 1/2 cups fresh strawberries, hulled and sliced

Instructions

1. Preheat and prepare. Preheat your oven to 350°F. Grease a 9x13-inch baking pan lightly with butter or non-stick spray and dust with flour, tapping out any excess.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat the softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium-high speed for 3–4 minutes, until pale and fluffy.
4. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Add the vanilla extract and mix to combine.
5. Alternate dry and wet. With the mixer on low, add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk in two additions (flour–milk–flour–milk–flour), beginning and ending with flour. Mix only until just combined — do not overwork the batter.
6. Bake. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 28–32 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the top is lightly golden. Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely in the pan on a wire rack.
7. Make the whipped cream. Just before serving, beat the heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract together with a hand mixer on medium-high until stiff peaks form. Spread evenly over the fully cooled cake.
8. Decorate the flag. Arrange the blueberries in a rectangle in the upper-left corner of the cake to form the field of stars. Lay rows of sliced strawberries across the rest of the cake in horizontal stripes, leaving white (whipped cream) stripes between each row. Serve immediately or refrigerate until ready.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 265 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 14g | Carbs: 32g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 115mg