Happy Fourth! If today finds you late to the table with minimal time to cook, and you’re scrambling to come up with a festive celebratory dish, I have a suggestion: Skip the following recipe, purchase a boxed cake mix, canned white icing, blueberries and strawberries, and this celebratory cake can be out the door in 30 minutes.

That’s not to say the following recipe is difficult; oh no, not in the least. There are elaborately decorated American Flag cakes to be sure, but my arrangement of berries to resemble a flag was completed with a minimum of effort. As well, the glory of making sheet cakes is you don’t need to use an electric mixer, and they’re adaptable to myriad flavors and ingredients to accommodate various tastes. Since they’re only one layer and traditionally served in their baking dish, they’re also easy to serve and transport to pot lucks and celebrations.

Our family (I’m thinking the young ‘uns) would prefer a sugary sweet cake made from a box to the recipe I’ve penned below, and there are decent organic mixes out there. My husband and I, however, are always on a quest to reduce our intake of refined sugar and indecipherable ingredients, and prefer substituting healthier alternatives. One of the best things about scratch cooking is the ability to control ingredients, in the case of this cake: processed flour, excessive sugar and saturated fat.

I don’t wish, however, to compromise the pleasure of finishing a meal with something sweet, and there’s ample fat and sugar in the following recipe, just not as much; I tried to defuse the sugar bomb without compromising the aesthetics.

Sugar is sugar, after all, and the unrefined, organic Coconut Palm sugar (made from the nectar of a coconut palm tree) I used for the cake probably metabolizes in my body affecting my blood sugar the same way as refined; I’m wary of those hyped-up health claims on product web sites. But I like the complexity of flavor in palm sugar - like a cross between brown sugar and molasses - which gives this cake a gingerbread sort of taste.

The addition of toasted chopped nuts and golden raisins soaked in a liquor would be nice additions for the more sophisticated palate. The whole wheat flour I used made for a denser cake, and I’m curious if toasted quinoa flour would lighten it up - it would certainly be friendly to gluten-free diets.

I made my icing with yogurt, reduced-fat cream cheese and powdered sugar; the type of icing style often used on carrot cakes. If I had used the palm sugar instead of powdered, it would be difficult to blend and the color would have lent a brownish cast to Old Glory; not my intention. My icing recipe is generous to ensure there’s enough for painting the sides, if you decide to remove it from the baking dish and serve it on a platter.

A typical sheet cake is twice as large as my recipe below, often referred to as a Texas sheet cake; a dessert the size of Texas. I halved the usual sheet cake size to amply serve 12, a Michigan sheet cake, if you will; a dessert the size of Michigan. Deliver the cake to the table decorated with lit sparklers and keep your eye on the grand ole' flag!

Yield: about 12 servings
Active Time: 45 minutes
Bake Time: 15-20 minutes

Ingredients:

Icing:

1 pound cream cheese*, room temperature
1 cup (2 percent) Greek-styled plain yogurt
1 cup confectioners’ sugar

*I used Neufchatel cream cheese, which has less fat.

Cake:

2 large eggs,
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1-1/4 cups sugar use organic, coconut palm sugar
1/3 cup Greek-styled unsweetened yogurt
4 ounces unsweetened applesauce (heaping 1/3 cup)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 pound unsalted butter (1 stick)
Oil for greasing pan
60-70 similarly sized ripe blueberries
20-30 similarly-sized ripe strawberries, hulled and halved

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. To make the icing, beat cream cheese, yogurt and confectioners sugar together until smooth. Refrigerate.
3. To make the cake, beat eggs in a large mixing bowl. Stir in flour, sugar, yogurt, applesauce, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and vanilla extract.
4. Bring butter and 1/4 cup of water to a slow boil, immediately remove from heat, and whisk into flour mixture.
5. Pour mixture into a well-oiled, 9X12-inch baking pan, baking sheet or jelly roll sheet. Bake on center rack of oven for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean.
6. Allow cake to come to room temperature before icing. (You may serve it in the baking dish or turn it out onto a large flat platter.)
7. Smooth icing over cake with a spatula. (Cake may be make several hours in advance at this point then covered and refrigerated.) Up to an hour before serving, arrange berries to resemble the American flag, per photo.