How To Make A Flag Cake For the USA, UK, Italy or Singapore

Make A Cake
American

American Flag
Earlier in July I wondered how to make a cake for July 4th and the whole month at my Toastmasters Club meetings showing the American flag. I now know you can use raspberries or strawberries and white icing, and red food colouring. (For an American or UK flag for the blue add blueberries.)

Singapore Flag

Singapore
Cheapest, smallest, simplest. Buy a cupcake. Cover half with white frosting. Put red jam or dyed red over the other half. (Or red foil taken off a wrapped chocolate.) Cut white frosting into a crescent and five small five point stars. And / or add the letters Sg. And place the cake on a large plate on a print out of the Singapore flag.

Italian Rainbow cake
Making a cake with a design on top is relatively easy. More time is needed to bake a cake with colour all the way through. rainbow cakes are popular and impressive. The easiest mutlicolour cakes are two colour or three colour.

For example, the red, white and green of the Italian flag.

Italian red, white and green food, in colours of the national flag. Photo by Exapler from Wikipedia.

Multi-Colour Sandwiches
I have also at the World Travel market in London, England, in November, seen multicolour sandwiches, layers of different coloured bread, celebrating a national flag.

Red Food Colouring
When I looked at rainbow cakes most cooks said that natural dyes such as beetroot and strawberry gave very pale colours and you would get better results from food colouring.

You can also get red and white colours using Jello (American brand of jelly).


UK Flag
If you are in London you could make an England cake which is much easier. the England glag or St Goerge's cross is a red cross of plus sign on a white background.



England flags are sold off in supermarkets the day after an England football match.  (The Swiss flag is white cross on red.) the Red Cross ambulance is a thick red cross in the centre of white background with a large white surround.

DIY & BOUGHT FLAG CAKES
Simple flag cakes in red and white
https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/food/a-slice-of-patriotism
https://bakeavenue.com/products/singapore-flag-cake
Elaborate cakes showing flags, personalities, landmarks, Merlions and more
https://mothership.sg/2015/08/this-is-the-amazeball-result-when-19-super-creative-patissiers-bake-birthday-cakes-for-singapore/
YouTube How to make a flag cake (for a US flag)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svRuAovIfmI
How to bake a green pandan cake with red and white Singapore flag topping using cream cheese.
http://www.foodiebaker.com/pandan-coconut-cake-with-cream-cheese-frosting/
Edible photo topping on backing sheet you peel off, From UK, free shipping to UK and can be posted worldwide:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Birthday-Cake-Edible-Image-Printed-Topper-Decoration-PERSONALISED-Mobile-Phone

About the Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker, teacher of English and other languages.

Fun With Flags - can you see what I see on the stars on the flags?

Problem
You want a break but you want to do something useful, learn something, not waste time?

Answer
Learn a language. Learn to recognize flags.

Today I looked back at the flags of the USA, Australia and New Zealand. I hope they don't change their flags. I've just gone to the trouble of learning to recognize which is which.

I looked back at the stars on the flags and was amazed. How many points on the stars? I started counting points.

I looked at the Australian and New Zealand flags and discovered the stars were quite different. Every time I walk into a big hotel or conference centre, or walk past a hotel in the streets of a big city like London, I see these flags, often dozens of them, and most of the flags are a mystery to me.

Put these two flats side by side and look at the stars and it's suddenly obvious. The bigger country, Australia, has more stars. You can even imagine that the bigger stars are the shape of the country, Australia, and that that smaller country, New Zealand, has fewer stars. The Australian stars have, let's count them, seven points. One smaller star has five points.

The New Zealand flag stars have five points. Later, I shall find five cities in New Zealand. Then every time I see a New Zealand flag it will remind me of the five cities. Alternatively, four cities, for the four stars.

Australian flag -

Then I went back. How many points on the leaves of the Canadian flag? Only three on each of three sections. What colour? Red. I can easily remember and recognize the Canadian flag, but how will I remember the colour? The letter d in Candian and the d in red, a red flag. I could go further and use each of the three points to remind myself of three cities on the east side of Canada, three in the middle, and three on the west. I'll come back to that. Let's just look at some more flags.

Here's the Esperanto flag, for the universal language, the simplest kind of star, only five points.

I won't often see that. But if I take the trouble, or start learning Esperanto, which has helped me make sense of the basics of grammar in English and other languages I shall at least see it on internet pages. I will see it if I go internet pages about the museum of languages in Vienna, Austria, or the museum about Zamenhof in Poland, adn at those places when I eventually get there. 

Now,  for the cities in New Zealand. I've been to New Zealand several times, mostly on skiing holidays. I need four or five names. Looking at the list of cities is a surprise, listed in Wikipedia. Only one has more than a million people.The major cities are the capital, Wellington, presumably named after the Duke of Wellington. I can imagine marching around the capital in Wellington boots. Auckland.

I go to the tourist board website, and it has too many cities, helpful links to every tourist organisation in the coutnry, great if you know where you are going but I want an overview. I try Tripadvisor. First I get hotels. Then the whole of Polynesia and best beachs and a quiz on what type of traveller I am and do I folow a butterfly or a compass. Depends if I am in a car or walking, whether I am going to a museum or on a picnic. Where do I get an overview. I need to creat my own, but first I need a reminder. 

Then I think how about Wikitravel. New Zealand is God's own country and Paradise of the Pacific. But Australians call it the shaky isalnd. Wow. Yes, I read about the earthquakes in Christchurch.

I started off counting points on stars. Now I look at the New Zealand flag and have a whole new world of facts flooding my mind.

My other wish is to learn the constellantion of stars that those stars on both flags represent. For a coffee break diversion, or killing time waiting for a plane at an airport, this has been an entertaining and instructive excercise.

Finally, stars on the American flag - fifty, one for each state. A nice round number. I always get muddled as to whether it's 50 or 52. It's 50. Wasington DC is not a state. Puerto Rico is not a state. 50 states on the mainland. Fifty stars.

The stars on the American flag have five points, like the old Egyptian wasy of drawing stars. Stars are drawn with spikes because your eyes see lines coming out of stars when you look at the stars.

Useful Travel websites:

Visitusa.com

https://www.newzealand.com/uk/visitor-information-centre/

http://curious.astro.cornell.edu/about-us/111-observational-astronomy/stargazing/general-questions/674-why-do-people-draw-stars-with-five-points-intermediate

https://www.newzealand.com/uk/visitor-information-centre/

https://www.australia.com/en-gb

Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. Please share links to your favourite posts.