Election Snack Cake – Easy Patriotic Swirled Cake Recipe!

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Election coming up? Get out there and vote! Then celebrate with this easy, egg-free election snack cake. Swirled with blue and red, then frosted, it’s a reminder that no matter where we stand, we are ultimately united.

Darlings, as we head straight into another election season, it’s time to roll up our sleeves and get to work. In my case, that means baking a simple cake to share with you. Did you know only 60% of the registered voters in the United States voted in the last presidential election? Only about half voted in the last mid-term elections. If baking a cake will encourage you to vote, let’s bake!

This cake is different than the traditional election cake, which voters used to receive at the polls after turning in their ballots. That cake was baked in a bundt pan, not as sweet, and somewhere between a cake and a bread. The recipe I linked to is worth checking out for the cake’s history. Nowadays you just get a sticker after voting. That’s okay though, we’ll bake our own cake!

Why bake an election snack cake?

This swirled snack cake is a great reminder to VOTE!

When you go to a restaurant, you like to know that the kitchen staff will prepare your favorite dish just the way you like it, right? Think of this country like a restaurant. The topics are your menu items, and the kitchen staff is the elected officials. Everyone doesn’t fit in the kitchen to cook. Since you can’t do it all yourself, choosing staff that cooks the way you like is important. You may not love everything about their cooking style, but you’re definitely going to vote for someone who cooks the way you prefer most of the time. Right? Vote.

If you have little people (aka – future voters), baking with them provides an excellent opportunity to talk about the importance of voting. My girls were with me during the shoot for this cake. We had a great talk about how officials are elected and why it’s our civic duty to vote in all elections. We talked about looking at the issues, where each candidate stands, and the importance of thinking through our vote before casting. Then we talked about how each person elected is accountable to the people who voted for them.

Honestly, I’m not sure how much they understood or remember from the conversation. But they’re young and it’s a start. The kids are old enough this election to start seeing the division between parties and different viewpoints. My big goal for this cake, and the inspiration behind the design, is to teach them that elections aren’t a war.

About the cake’s design…

Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” And yet, with the 24/7 news media, the internet, and the talking heads that get more clicks and ad revenue with increasingly divisive messages, that’s where we are. But I believe it doesn’t have to be that way.

We can have different opinions on how to accomplish things. But if we all work to the same goal – a peaceful and safe country where we can raise our families without fear, find opportunities if we work hard enough, and be active and fruitful members of our communities – in the end, it all works out.

It doesn’t work if we let fear and anger guide decisions. If we won’t listen to each other. And if we are just looking for what benefits us the most no matter who or what it hurts. We aren’t separate layers of red and blue.

We are one big pan mixed together. And like a jambalaya, chili, chopped salad, or swirled cake, together we are better than our individual parts. It doesn’t mean we lose what makes each of us unique, but we see ourselves as parts of a larger community.

This is why I chose to keep the frosting a single color. Red and blue are the colors used by the two major political parties here in the US. Since we’ve got a patriotic thing going, the frosting is white for two reasons. First, vanilla cake gets vanilla frosting because it tastes good. Second, the colors of the American flag are red, white, and blue, so by using a white frosting, we have red, white, and blue cake.

I’m all for having special cake for a presidential election, but this recipe is too good to store away for once every 4 years. It’s just as delicious for any other patriotic holiday, so let’s make that happen, yes? 😉

A few recipe notes…

You might notice the recipe is tagged under the “Baking for B2” category which I introduced in this small-batch pumpkin muffin post. That means it’s easy to adapt for those with common allergies. So that means if you need a snack cake that’s vegan and dairy-free, this one fits the bill! If you’d rather use regular milk and butter in the frosting, that works too! The cake is egg free regardless, so no substitutions there.

As always, if you are baking for allergies, make sure all your ingredients are safe by reading the labels. For example, this election snack cake would be perfect for a friend’s son. But if I were to make it for my nephew, I’d need to find a different butter for the frosting because the non-dairy butter sticks I like to use contain pea protein. Legumes are a no-go for my B2.

To keep the cake texture from getting too dense, make sure not to over-mix. This is easy to do when you have to split batter and stir in additional color. I prefer to mix cakes like this by hand for that reason. Make your batter in a large bowl. When it’s mostly mixed (a few small flour streaks might remain), divide it in half and color. By the time you’ve colored your batter, everything is perfectly mixed!

Use gel food coloring to get the vibrant colors shown with only 2-3 drops of color. You can find gel food coloring online or at many craft stores. You can use liquid coloring, but you’ll need to add a little more. Natural food coloring won’t give you colors that are quite as vibrant, but it’s an option should you need it.

Since it’s a simple cake, I keep decorations basic by leaving the frosting uncolored and adding sprinkles. You can also pipe on the word “vote” if you’re making this for an election. To add sprinkle letters, I placed a letter-shaped cookie cutter on my cake and then spooned sprinkles into it. Use food-only tweezers to remove rogue sprinkles. I used non-pariels (round sprinkles) on this cake. If you can find jimmies (the sprinkles that look like sticks), they’re far easier to work with.

The top and bottom of the cake are cake sparkles in red and blue. If I were making this for a Labor day, Memorial Day, or 4th of July barbecue, I would just use a red, white, and blue sprinkle mix. Do what works for you, darlings. Cakes are perfect canvases for kitchen creativity.

I hope you love this election snack cake recipe darlings! Give it a try, snap a photo (tag me!), and go vote!