Every year at the end of June, Claudette Lacour begins to make a mental list of the things she'll need to prepare her eight flag cakes for the annual Erath Fourth of July Festival.
Sugar cookie dough? Check.
Cream cheese and powdered sugar? Check.
Blueberries? Check.
Strawberries and bananas? Check.
For 30 years, Lacour has prepared the Fourth of July cakes to gift to people around her hometown of Erath. She bakes one for the grand marshal tea party, police department, grand marshals of the festival and other family friends. For years, she baked one for now-deceased WWII veteran Lee Bernard and his wife, Vella Mae.
The cake starts with a sugar cookie base, filled with homemade cream cheese icing and topped with fruit to create an American flag. Blueberries for the stars and alternating rows of cut strawberries and bananas for the stripes.
"You may not have 50 blueberries," Lacour said, "but you can make it look like that."
She spreads a special glaze over the top of the cake that acts as glue to hold the ingredients together.
"The glaze seals the whole flag, and you can put it in the refrigerator and serve it the next day," she said.
Lacour gathers her family and community members to help her make the Fourth of July flag cakes, including her granddaughters Caylee and Alaina Deshotel. They both think fondly of the process and remember Lacour's meticulousness in the kitchen.
Alaina Deshotel remembers going to the store with her grandmother to pick out the fruit. There was a method to the madness.
"We had to look at every carton of blueberries and strawberries to pick the best ones," she said. "And they had to be the biggest ones."
When the sisters were young, they were in charge of placing the fruit. Then, they graduated to cutting the fruit.
"She very specific about how you cut the strawberries," Caylee Deshotel said, "because they have to be a certain amount of thickness."
She added that the strawberries and bananas on the stripes mimic the look of fallen dominoes.
Throughout the years, Lacour and her late husband, Elwood, have been involved with several facets of the Fourth of July Festival. Claudette Lacour has served as the president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and grand marshal. The festival features fireworks, food booths, a parade, live music, a pageant and more.
"It's a great event for the community," Lacour said. "People that live further away are able to come, and there's something every day to enjoy."
Fourth of July Flag Cake
Makes one cake
Recipe by Claudette Lacour