Whiteley Creek Homestead

Revamped Texas Sheet Cake

Memorial Day Weekend. The official start of summertime outdoor activities. And potluck picnics. During my childhood, I vividly remember women proudly bringing their very best "covered dishes" to share. The ones they became known for through the years. In the present day, more often than not, contributions have become ones hurriedly snagged from the grocery aisle or deli. Perhaps enroute to the potluck? You and I may even have unknowingly stood in the same checkout line with our plastic quart of potato salad, rotisserie chicken, and gallon of lemonade. Despite having been affected by life's busyness, too, I do long for the potlucks portrayed in "Church Basement Ladies" musicals.

Photo: Mark Frohna Marcus Center for the Performing Arts Milwaukee WI June 2011

While planning what to bring to a potluck that Dick and I attended earlier this month, my mind wandered back to when I was a young wife and mother. Texas Sheet Cakes were popular. According to my online research, the Texas Sheet Cake started showing up in the early 1960s and is a simplified German Chocolate Cake. Whereas a German Chocolate Cake requires melting chocolate, creaming butter, and beating egg whites, Texas Sheet Cake requires fewer steps and it is baked in a 12 x 18 x 2 jelly roll pan instead of three layers. Both cakes were frosted with a coconut pecan cooked frosting. The Texas Sheet Cake that I am familiar with is spread with a chocolate powdered sugar frosting sprinkled with chopped pecans. 

The original cake recipe calls for 2 sticks butter and 2 cups sugar and the frosting has 1 1/2 sticks butter and 3 cups powdered sugar! I set about to find a healthier version. The Burnt Apple Blog's Healthified Texas Sheet Cake uses 1/2 cup bean puree to replace the two sticks of butter, then I reduced the cake recipe's 2 cups sugar to 3/4 cup. I drastically reduced the butter content in the recipe's frosting and made ½ recipe which produced a thinner layer but still plenty of coverage. It’s all that’s needed. My revamped version tastes every bit as good as the over-the-top fat-and-sugar-laden original recipe.

Revamped Texas Sheet Cake

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar (I used ¾ cup. Perfect.)

¼ cup cacao powder

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp sea salt

¾ cup hot water

½ cup bean puree (Burnt Apple Blog's substitute for original Texas Sheet Cake's 2 sticks butter)

½ cup buttermilk

2 eggs

 1 tsp vanilla

Sift dry ingredients together. In another bowl, whisk wet ingredients. Add wet to dry and stir until ingredients are incorporated. Don’t overmix. Pour batter into an oiled or greased 9X13 cake pan. Bake at 375° for 20-25 minutes until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Allow cake to cool completely, then frost.

Frosting

1 tbsp butter

1 tbsp cacao powder

1 ½ tbsp milk

1 ½ cups sifted powdered sugar

½ tsp vanilla

Mix and spread over cooled cake. Sprinkle with chopped pecans, if desired.

 

 

 

santa scarecrow

In the autumn of last year, I had removed the sundress and hat from my "scarecrow" during the garden's end-of-season putting to bed process. The wind and snow over the winter had toppled the simple board framework that formed a vertical "body" and perpendicular "arms" reminiscent of an old-fashioned telephone pole.  (See left side of photo.) Mentioning to Dick that I needed to set it upright again to ready it for its summer attire, he apparently tucked the thought away to retrieve later. He frequently rides his four-wheeler across our property to an adjacent piece of land where his friend, Pat, lives. This day, Pat had a large, plastic Santa targeted for the landfill. Immediately, Dick thought scarecrow. That would be the first thought to pop into everybody's head, right? Incredulously, Pat said, "She's not gonna want that in her garden!" "Oh, yes, she will," was Dick's rapid-fire reply. And he was right.

 

a flock of six

Our hens. Olga, Phoebe, Flossie, Henny-penny, Opal, and Pearl. Three Rhode Island Red and three Barred Rock. With no roaming restrictions, their diet is varied and nature-inspired, exercise occurs regularly and freely throughout the day in the fresh air and sunshine, and human contact aids psychological health. They must follow two rules. Eggs must be laid in the coop's straw-lined nesting boxes and all hens must return to the coop at dusk. A simple, happy life with few rules but very important ones. 

Free-range foraging is supplemented with a chicken layer ration that we purchase from Buckwheat Growers in Wadena, (Minnesota). It is "transitional" feed, which means that it is raised using organic growing methods, but the farmer's fields are not yet certified organic. It takes a three year period to receive certification. This particular mix consists of barley, field peas, flax, buckwheat, oats, kelp, and vitamin and mineral supplements. Our hens eat well so that we may eat well.