Day 258: Texas Sheet Cake

I have been meaning to post this recipe for quite some time. Texas sheet cake is Boyd's  absolute favorite thing in the world. The last time I made Texas sheet cake it was a disaster! My oven was too small to fit the jelly roll pan and I didn't realize the rack tilted up in the back. Needless to say we had a 1/3 burnt, 1/3 raw, and 1/3 normal sheet cake. Luckily my oven is big enough now. 

Another reason why I'm posting this recipe is because my current recipe looks like this:

 I didn't quite know what to make of this recipe card. Boyd says it has a lot of character and has been used many, many times. He always tells me a recipe needs to look like it has been used. I didn't really know how to read it or what anything meant. That is why I'm redoing it, so it is user friendly. 

Ingredients

Cake

• 1/2 C. Shortening (Crisco)
• 1/2 C. Oleo (Margarine)
• 1 C. Water
• 4 TBS Cocoa Powder 

• 1/2 C. Sour Milk or Buttermilk
• 2 Eggs
• 1 tsp. Vanilla

•  2 C. Sugar
• 2 C. Flour
• 1 tsp. Soda
• 1 tsp. Salt 

Topping

• 1/2 C. Oleo (Margarine)
• 4 TBS Cocoa Powder
• 6 tsp. Milk
• 1 LB Powdered Sugar

• Bake at 350 for 15 minutes 

What the recipe card meant to say was. . . . 

Combine dry ingredients (sugar, flour, soda, salt) in a mixing bowl. 

In a medium pot combine Shortening, Oleo (I had no clue oleo meant margarine), water and cocoa powder. Stir on Medium heat until shortening and oleo are melted. Do not boil. 

 If you don't have sour milk you can add a tsp of vinegar to your milk and it will curdle.

Stir, in milk, then add your eggs. 

Make sure it is not too hot so you don't cook your eggs. 

Add vanilla.

Pour your chocolate mixture into your dry ingredients. Mix on low till combined. 

Slowly pour into a 17.25 x 11.5 " Jelly Roll Pan

Bake at 350 for 15 minutes

When you have 10 minutes left on your timer, start to make your topping. 

In a medium sauce pan melt 1/2 C oleo.

Add 4 TBS cocoa powder. 

Stir in 6 tsp milk (I needed more). 

Slowly add in 1 LB of Powdered Sugar (I used less), 

then, as Boyd puts it, "Then beat the snot out of it!"

You want the consistency to be runny, but have it still slightly stick to the spoon.  If you need more milk, like I did, add it a few drops (literal drops) at a time. If you add too much too fast it will just become runny.

 

Insert toothpick into cake and make sure it comes out clean. 

AS SOON AS you pull your cake out of the oven pour chocolate topping over the cake.

(Tin foil trick: Place your hot cookie sheet over some tin foil. Sometimes the topping will spill over the sides, that's ok. It makes for an easy clean up)

Spread topping around with a metal spatula. Be careful not to rip your cake. 

ENJOY!

Upon special request, Boyd wanted toasted marshmallows on top of his sheet cake tonight. I just sprinkled some mini marshmallows on top and threw it under the broiler for a second to toast it. YUM! I will say it is better with the mallows!

Day 257: Boyd's Study Habits

This is how Boyd studies.

He tells me that our couch hurts his back.

Then I look at his posture and wonder 

why he tells me its the couches fault. 

Curse those addicting angry birds!

Day 256: Boyd and Mihai

I found this picture from Boyd's mission. This is Mihai. He had been attending English classes forever. If you know who he is you can chuckle, but if you don't you can ask somebody who does and they will have stories about him. 

Notice how skinny Boyd is? He said at that point on his mission they were walking everywhere because the buses and trains couldn't take them where they need to go.

Day 255: Sweet Sunset

Isn't this an awesome sunset? I took this while we were fishing over labor day. It is exam week which means my posts are going to be lame this week. Sorry. I love this picture because I didn't have to photoshop it to make it look cool.

Day 254: Super Saturday

When I was a little girl I remember going with my mom to her Super Saturday activities. I loved going and seeing all the cool crafts you could make. I would get so excited and look forward to going with her every year. Now it is my turn to be a grown up little miss and go to my own Super Saturday. This is my first Super Saturday I've been to since I have been in relief society. It was a spectacular Super Saturday. I sometimes wish I could be a crafty queen all the time. I was in heaven today, I got to paint, make cards, make bows, make things cute, ahhhhh isn't it just so great. Here are the big projects I made today. 

Love it! I absolutely love candy corn. I don't like to eat it because it makes my tummy hurt every time, but I sure do like the way it looks. It's just so cute!

Not quite sure if this tree is bigger than our real Christmas tree. I dunno, it's pretty close.

Day 253: Petrified of Pictures

Note to self. One day, when we have kids, make sure to take lots of picture of them. Train them to not be afraid of the camera. Teach them to look at the camera and give a nice smile with big eyes. Last but not least, have them sit still and be obedient. Is this too much to ask for? 

Today I did a shoot and the little girl did not like the camera at all! I had to blindly aim the camera as I stuck my head out from behind the lens to puff my cheeks out, cross my eyes, and make a zurburt noise to get this princess to smile.

Day 252: Big Bug

It is never a good sign when Boyd goes to step out of the car then says "eeee!" as he retracts his leg. My curiosity got the best of me when his next statement was "grab the camera!" This is quite possibly the biggest moth I have ever seen in real life. Yuck! I'm so glad my camera has a mega zoom. There is no way I would get close to this thing. Boyd was laughing when I was taking the picture and he said it would be funny if this thing came fluttering up at my face. (if you know me, you know that I'm scared of birds and bugs [especially butterflies] because I hate how they "flutter" in my face.) Luckily I was safe from this bug because it was injured.  I think the only way I ever take pictures of bugs is if I think they are dead or injured.  This one was injured.

 Just for measuring purposes, here is Boyd's foot.

Day 251: Fishing

Boyd's parents have a private pond in their neighbor hood. Over Labor Day weekend I wanted to go fishing. So we did at 8:30 p.m.

Boyd, being the good husband he is, handled the worm situation.

 Ginger puppy, of course, wanted to come too.

 Nothing like a boy(d) and his dog.

Boyd caught a fishy! Yay! But it was kinda small. 

As you can see he caught it after it got really dark. 

 Ginger wanted in on the action the whole time.

Day 250: Table Makeover Part 2

Our poor table has been through so much. We got it from Boyd's parents who got it from. . . nobody really knows. Based on the paint, Boyd and I assumed our table used to be green, then brown, now black.

 

Yesterday it was supposed to rain, so we did not go to the airshow like we had planned. All morning it threatened to rain but we didn't feel or see a single drop. Boyd decided to take the table out to the grass to spray paint it and I commented "wasn't it supposed to rain today?" About 20 seconds later it started to pour.

We moved our table makeover from the lawn to the back porch.

 This is my happy working face 

 Ah, I love spray paint. It fixes everything.

Boyd and I purchased these "lint free" cloths for our Wipe-on Poly. I will NEVER buy this product again! It left horrible amounts of lint all over our table and now they were embedded into our table. Ugg! It was extremely frustrating, so I made Boyd take a thumbs down picture.

Day 249: Table Makeover Part 1

We labored on labor day today. Remember our mismatched table? It is brown but the rest of our furniture is black. Today we took care of this little problem (one year later). This has been one of those projects that just kept haunting me and we have finally gotten around to doing our table makeover. A big thanks to mom and dad bills for letting us use their garage. 

BEFORE