• Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour three 9-inch round cake pans.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
• In a large mixing bowl, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time, then stir in the vanilla extract.
• Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.
• Divide the batter equally into three bowls. Leave one bowl plain, and color one bowl red and the other blue using food coloring.
• Pour the batter into the prepared cake pans. Smooth the tops with a spatula.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
• Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.
• If the cakes are not level, wait for the cakes to cool completely. A warm cake may crumble when you cut it.
• Use a serrated knife to trim off the domed top of the cake. Hold the knife parallel to the cake and slowly saw back and forth while rotating the cake.
• Continue trimming until the surface of the cake is level.
• Repeat this process with the other cake layers.

Frosting Directions

• For the frosting, beat the butter and vegetable shortening in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Gradually beat in the powdered sugar, then add the vanilla extract and milk. Beat until smooth.
• You can adjust the amount of powdered sugar in the frosting recipe to achieve your desired level of sweetness and thickness.
• If the frosting is too thick, you can add a little more milk, a teaspoon at a time, until the desired consistency is reached.
• Take 2 cups of frosting and split it between two bowls. (1 cup in each bowl) Color one bowl red, and one blue by mixing in small amounts of food dye until you get the desired colors.
• With the rest of the frosting, if you feel this frosting is slightly yellow in color from the butter you can add some white food coloring along with the tiniest bit of purple or violet food coloring. Use a toothpick and dip it into the violet food coloring. Scrape that into the plain frosting. That should be enough to take the yellow color out.
• Place a tablespoon of the white frosting in the center of a cake stand. Cut two rectangular pieces of parchment paper and put them joining together in the center on top of the frosting. This will help keep your cake stand clean and can be easily removed when you are finished decorating.
• Put another small amount of frosting on top of the parchment paper and place the blue cake layer on top. Spread a layer of white frosting over the top, then place the white cake layer on top. Spread a layer of white frosting over the top, then place the red cake layer on top.
• Spread a thin layer of plain white frosting over the top and sides of the cake. This will be the crumb layer. Put the cake into the fridge for 30 min to chill
• Do a final layer of white icing on top and around the sides of the cake. Smooth it as best you can with a cake spatula.
• Decorate the sides with some sprinkles.
• Use a Wilton color swirl decorating set to pipe swirls of red and blue frosting on top of the cake. It will allow you to do 3 colors at once but I just filled two of the bags with red and blue frosting and left the 3rd bag empty. I packed some kitchen roll down into the empty bag to prevent the frosting from coming back up into the empty bag.