We were all surprised when Miss J. asked if she could make a sheet cake. Where had she ever heard of a "sheet" cake, we smiled and wondered. The answer is, in this library book about one of Grandpa C.'s favorite characters, Amelia Bedelia, written by Herman Parish and illustrated by Lynn Sweat.
The sheet cake recipe is on the last page and is as follows:
3 cups flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup cocoa
3/4 cup vegetable oil
2 Tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups water
Step 1: Sift the dry ingredients directly into an ungreased 9x 13 pan.
Add the oil, vinegar, and vanilla.
Pour water over all ingredients.
Mix with a fork until smooth.
Step 2: Bake at 350 degrees for 25 to 30 minutes.
Cool the cake and ice it in the pan with your favorite frosting.
We decided to double the recipe and use this large round pan just given to us by Eve while we were at the beach. She had it filled with homemade cinnamon buns. While there, we used it to make a large sugar cookie ( requiring two packages of the Pillsbury "tubes") which was then frosted with sweetened cream cheese and topped with cut up fresh strawberries and kiwi fruit.
The best part occurred after adding the vinegar. The baking soda and vinegar combination started to make huge bubbles in the pan. It took a long time to adequately mix these ingredients in the pan. It would have been so much easier to have used a bowl and a mixer, which I will do in the future.
While the cake baked and cooled, we got to work on preparing our homemade frosting.
The ingredients used were: a stick of butter, vanilla, peanut butter, powered sugar and hot coffee! It was delicious!!!
This huge cake, (that is a full-sized cutting board), reminded me of a giant reeses cup.
It was hard to cut reasonable sized pieces out of this big round pan! The cake was extremely moist and tasty. It is a much better recipe than the homemade chocolate mayonnaise cake that I have been baking for years. In the future, when we want something sweet that can be made out of ingredients I already have, Amelia Bedelia's Sheet Cake will be just the thing to bake!
