Texas sheet cake

One of my favorite food blogs is Homesick Texan. While I haven’t tried many of the actual recipes, I love reading about all the foods I remember from my childhood. Growing up, just about every birthday celebration we had featured a Texas Sheet Cake. Baked right on a cookie sheet, it was a hybrid of chocolate cake and brownie, not too sweet and oh so delicious. So when Homesick Texan posted a recipe for a Strawberry Sheet Cake, I knew I had to try it. And I had the perfect occasion to give it a test run, a family barbeque last weekend to celebrate our June birthdays – mine and my mom’s.

I was a little surprised that the recipe had you bake the cake in a 9 x 13 baking dish, not the traditional cookie sheet. And while I was tempted to use the cookie sheet, I didn’t want to take a chance of screwing it up with guests scheduled to arrive that afternoon. So I followed the directions to the letter.

So how did it turn out?



Well, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. The cake was a little denser than your traditional boxed variety, almost more of a banana bread consistency than cake. Still, the overall reviews from my family were extremely positive (except from my sister, who halfway through wolfing down a piece learned there was cream cheese in the frosting and who then decided she didn’t like it). Next time I would bake it on the cookie sheet, which would make the cake thinner and help balance the cake/frosting ratio.

Speaking of frosting that had to be the absolute best part of this recipe… the fresh strawberry frosting. So good in fact, we were scooping extra frosting on the side of each serving!

If you’re looking for something different to serve at your next gathering, I’d say give this one a try… but bust out the cookie sheet so you are serving an authentic Texas sheet cake!