All the new rage is Cake Shakes or Crazy Cake Shakes or Freakshakes. Whatever you call them I have the BEST 4th of July American Cake Shake Recipe to celebrate the July 4th Weekend.

Last year while we were in New York, we stayed at this really fun hotel in SOHO. We walked around quite a bit from our hotel, to get to public transportation and on our way one day, I spied a fun restaurant. There was a line out the door and around the corner to this teeny, tiny, little restaurant. We peeked closer to see what the "what" was about. This is when we discovered CAKE SHAKES!

These Cake Shakes seem to be all the rage now as they are all over Instagram. My kids have literally been begging me to make Cake Shakes for the past year. I made them all a Crazy MilkShake in the middle of winter, but left the Cake Shake making until this weekend.

In order to celebrate the 4th of July weekend in a really big way, I baked a fun cake and intend to use it for 4th of July American Cake Shakes for everyone! We are having a little gathering here at our home with some amazing friends and all the kiddos (and adults, if they want to indulge) can have a CRAZY CAKE SHAKE to celebrate our independence.

If you have not heard of or seen a Cake Shake yet, let me inform you == Cake Shakes, are essentially an ice-cream milkshake with a beautiful composition of delectable sweet treats that is so pretty and totally posted all over instagram.

Shakes really are the perfect way to celebrate the 4th of July and these will be quite the impressive dessert, I think (I hope!). There will be plenty of kids there and what kids doesn't love ice cream -- this will just be a ramped up way to serve ice cream to our guests this weekend.

I wanted to have plenty of "add-ons" to top our milkshakes this weekend, so I decided to experiment with what we could use to top our Crazy Milk Shakes. Mini rice krispie treats are always a hit with any crowd, but are even better if they are dipped in frosting and sprinkles! I also have some rock candy lollipops, pizzelles filled with honey (these are SO good and like a secret weapon when served). Lastly, I baked a fun cake to add to the top of our 4th of July American Vanilla Cake MilkShakes!

I made a simple vanilla milkshakes as I wanted to keep with the red, white and blue theme of the holiday of our great nation's independence. But, really, you could make whatever flavor of milk shake that you like, the sky is the limit as far as I am concerned. You could even have an open ice cream bar and take requests!

4th of July American Cake Shakes

Ingredients

Cake

I simply baked a white cake from a box mix and added a bit of cream, cake flour and vanilla extract to make it taste a bit more like an actual homemade cake. You could bake a homemade cake if you like.

Buttercream Frosting

4 cups of powdered sugar
1 stick of butter (room temperature)
¼ cup of whipping cream + 2 TBSP
1 tsp of vanilla extract

Milkshakes

4 cups vanilla ice cream (I used fat-free)
1½ cup of milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Make the cake as you usually would, add, red, white and blue sprinkles to the batter. Pour into a round cake tin and bake. Slice off the top once completely cooled. Frost with homemade buttercream frosting and covered red, white and blue sprinkles.

2. To make the homemade buttercream frosting, simply add all the ingredients together and mix with a spoon. This is the best frosting and so much tastier than store bought AND so easy to make. I tell everyone and they always state they do not keep whipping cream at home. IF you don't have whipping cream, you can use cream ( ½ & ½) OR even milk for that matter; but use a bit less than ¼ cup to begin with and add in a tsp at a time until you get the consistency of good frosting. If you get too creamy of frosting (AKA too runny), simply add in powdered sugar by the tbsp.

3. To make the milkshakes, frost the outside rim of your glass about 2 inches (this is really to your liking). This frosting is basically an edible glue. Add chocolate covered candy, jimmies, sprinkles, cookies etc.

4. Blend together ice cream, milk and vanilla extract until creamy and smooth.

5. Carefully scoop or pour milkshake into the prepared glasses.

6. Add a slice of cake to the top of the glass, covering the rim. Add rice krispie treats, candy lollipop, and pizzelle. You can top off with whipped cream as well if you like (I don't care for whipped cream, so mine did not have any).

Enjoy!!

This 4th of July American Cake Shakes is the best “I cant stop eating, drinking, licking” it up kind of sweet treat for this weekends celebrations! And it is super delicious too!