Few desserts capture the spirit of celebration like a July 4th Patriotic Ombre Layer Cake with dressed in patriotic colors. Whether you’re planning a Fourth of July gathering, a summer picnic, or just craving something sweet and stunning, this Vanilla Cake with Red, White, and Blue Ombré Buttercream is a showstopper that tastes just as amazing as it looks.
Light, Fluffy, and Full of Flavor
The base of this beauty is a classic vanilla cake—moist, tender, and lightly sweetened to allow the frosting to shine. What sets this cake apart is its versatility: it’s elegant enough for a formal party but simple enough to whip up on a sunny afternoon.
Made with real vanilla extract and a butter for richness, each bite melts in your mouth with just the right balance of flavor and texture. The cake layers are soft yet sturdy enough to support generous swirls of buttercream—a baker’s dream.
The Frosting: A Whipped Work of Art
Let’s talk about the frosting. This American buttercream is silky-smooth and perfectly pipeable, made with real butter, a splash of milk, and a pinch of salt to cut through the sweetness. But the real magic? The ombré effect.
Using gel food coloring gel, the buttercream is tinted into three bold hues—red, white, and blue—then blended seamlessly around the cake in a gradient pattern that fades from one color to the next. Whether you go for a rustic spatula-textured finish or a sleek, smooth look, the results are always stunning.
Decorating Tips
- Start with a Crumb Coat: Apply a thin layer of white buttercream first to lock in crumbs and give you a clean base to build on.
- Work from Bottom to Top: Apply red on the bottom, white in the middle, and blue at the top. Use an offset spatula or cake scraper to blend the colors where they meet.
- Add Flair: Top with fresh berries, star-shaped sprinkles, or tiny American flags for extra flair.
Why We Love It
This cake isn’t just eye-catching—it’s meaningful. It’s the kind of dessert that brings people together, starts conversations, and disappears slice by slice before your eyes. It’s made for laughter on porches, sparkler-lit evenings, and second helpings shared with family and friends.
So whether you’re a seasoned baker or just getting started, this vanilla cake with red, white, and blue ombré buttercream is a recipe worth saving—and savoring.
July 4th Vanilla Ombre Layer Cake with Red, White & Blue Buttercream Frosting
Equipment
- 1 small offset spatula
- 1 large frosting spatula
- 2 8-inch round layer cake pans
- parchment paper for lining cake pans
- 1 standing mixer or hand-held electric beaters
- 3 colors of sprinkles red, white, blue
- 3 colors of food coloring gel Red Rouge, White Blanc, Navy Marine
Ingredients
Vanilla Layer Cake
- 4 oz. unsalted butter (softened to room temp)
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 3 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 2 1/2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 1 cup milk
Vanilla Buttercream Frosting
- 12 oz. unsalted butter
- 32 oz. powdered sugar
- 3 tsp. pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup milk
- red food coloring gel – Red Rouge (We use Satin Ice food color gel by Satin Fine Foods, but any good food gel will work)
- white food coloring gel – White Blanc
- blue food coloring gel – Navy Marine
- red edible sprinkles/confetti
- white edible sprinkles/confetti
- blue edible sprinkles/confetti
Instructions
Vanilla Layer Cake
- Preheat oven to 350℉. Cut out parchment paper to fit in the bottom of your cake pans. Spray the sides of the pans and the parchment liner with PAM or cooking spray. Set pans aside for now.
- Blend flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl. Set aside. Measure out milk and set aside.
- Place the butter in the bowl of your standing mixer and beat on high speed until light and fluffy. Turn speed down and slowly add granulated sugar. Once all sugar is added continue to beat for another minute or so. Add vanilla and mix well.
- Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Continue to beat until well incorporated. Beat in oil.
- Now, add flour and milk alternately, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
- Evenly distribute the cake batter between the two prepared cake pans. Gently drop the pans on the counter to get rid of any air bubbles. Bake for 25 minutes, or until a tooth pick comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a metal cake rack. When completely cool removed from pans.
- At this point, you can begin to frost the cake, or you can wraps the cake layers in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to frost.
Red, White & Blue Buttercream Frosting
- Place the butter in the bowl of your standing mixer. Beat on high speed until creamy and light in color. Slowly add powdered sugar, about 1 cup at a time and beat on low until incorporated. After you’ve added about 3 cups of the sugar, add the vanilla and a little bit of the milk. Continue to beat until creamy and smooth. Alternating between sugar and a tiny bit of milk at a time, beat until you’ve used up all but about 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Reserve this in case you need to add more if you get the frosting too soft.
- At this point, you have to do a consistency check to see that the frosting is spreadable — not too thick and not too runny. Add a little more milk if too thick, and a little more sugar if too thin.
- Divide the frosting into 2 bowls. Use one half as is for frosting in between layers and doing the crumb layer on the top and outside edges of the cake. Divide the the other half into 3 smaller bowls for coloring into red, white and blue. Add a tiny bit of food coloring gel at a time to get the right coloring. I found that I needed quite a bit of the red to get it to the nice red color, and we stopped when the blue got to a denim blue color, because that is what we wanted.
Frosting and decorating the cak
- If your cake layers look like a dome on top, cut off enough to make the cake flat using a bread knife. Save the scraps for snitching or having with coffee.
- Lay one cake layer on your cake plate. Spread the top and sides of the layer with the plain vanilla frosting. Distribute a layer of sprinkles over the frosting on top of the bottom layer.
- Lay the second layer on top and frost the sides and top of the cake to completely cover the cake with your crumb coat. Refrigerate for 30 minutes or so. Can refrigerate overnight and continue with the frosting the next day.
- Now it’s time to make your ombré colors on the sides of the cake. Place a bowl over top of the cake if you want the blue frosting to come up a little bit over the top of the cake. Using the small off-set spatula, frost about 1 inch or so of red frosting all around the sides of the cakes. Repeat the process with the white and blue frosting. We put a little edge of the blue frosting on the very edge of the top of the cake, too, for the effect we wanted.
- Using your long frosting spatula dipped in a little bit of water, smooth out the sides of the cake. You will want to have the spatula right up against the sides of the cake applying a little bit of inward pressure. Refrigerate cake for another 30 minutes. Repeat the ombre frosting process. e
- Gently press the sprinkles into the sides of the cake wherever you would like them.
- Spread some of the white frosting over the top of the cake up to the blue edges and smooth out.
- Using a small round cake decorating tip, write your message on top of the cake with either blue or red frosting. Sprinkle away over the tops of the cake.
- Refrigerate cake until ready to serve. Remove from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before serving.
Notes
- We like to leave a little tab on two sides of the parchment paper liner to make it easier to lift the cake out of the pans once they are baked and cooled. See photo in directions.
- We use a lot of frosting for this cake, becasue we first do a complete crumb layer of frosting around the cake in order to smooth out all of the edges.
- The second layer of frosting is to get the ombre effect. Let that chill in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight.
- Finally, spread your final ombre layers, and right away apply the sprinkles while the frosting is still sticky and moist.
- A nice trick for getting your ombre frosting smoothed out, is to use a long frosting spatula dipped in a cold water and hold it very firmly against the sides of the cake while you spin the cake on the cake spinner, to smooth out the frosting.
- We used sprinkles on part of the cake and decided not to use it on the white row on the sides of the sides of the cake, but you can certainly use sprinkles on each color if you want to.
- We use a small spoon to get the sprinkles to adhere onto the frosting.