Yesterday was the home opener for the 2012 Michigan Football season. We played Air Force so the tailgate theme was "All-American".
After a long and stressful work week I decided to make a simple design for the cake, taking an American flag and modifying the white star field on blue to be a maize and blue Michigan logo. 
I made a chocolate cake using Beatty's Chocolate Cake recipe from Ina Garten. I baked it in a sheet cake pan and then cut it in half to make a two layer, rectangular shaped cake.
Next, I made up a double batch of buttercream icing. I used a Wilton #789 decorating tip to ice the cake, smoothing it with a large offset spatula.
With my cake iced, I turned to making my flag design on the cake. Although fondant looks prettier and is easier to work with I decided to use rolled buttercream because it tastes yummier. I made up a batch and tinted some of it red and some of it blue. I rolled out the blue first, cut out a rectangle and placed it in the top left of the cake. I then rolled out the red, cut it into strips and layered it onto the cake to make the stripes of the flag.
My final step was to tint some of my leftover buttercream from icing my cake a maize color. I used a flat basketweave tip to make a block M shape on the blue rectangle and then used a small spatula to smooth together the seams.
Although I always notice the imperfections on my cakes, I think it turned out pretty cute and most importantly it tasted delicious. The icing on the cake (if you excuse my terrible pun) was that Michigan beat Air Force. It wasn't a pretty win, but after the loss to Alabama last week we'll take what we can get. Go Blue!