White Texas Sheet Cake

I would take this over chocolate sheet cake any day. Almond extract never hurt anything, and especially not this cake. I frosted this cake with a double batch of my favorite whipped buttercream vanilla frosting.

1 cup butter
1 cup water
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup sour cream, at room temperature
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees
2. In a medium saucepan, bring butter and water to a boil. Meanwhile, in a large bowl add flour and sugar and mix. Then add in the eggs, sour cream, almond extract, baking soda, and salt. Slowly pour in the butter/water mixture. Stir until well combined and smooth. Batter will be thin.
3. Pour into a greased sheet pan. Bake for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown. Cool completely.
4. Frost with a double batch of this frosting. Add 1 teaspoon of almond extract to the frosting.
5. Cut the cake (into big pieces, the only way to do it!) and top with fresh berries.

source: recipe adapted from here

Have any questions about this recipe? email me at me@amandaabby.com

The Best Banana Bread

Remember when I said that these banana muffins were the best (and better than your's)? Well, I take that back. I found a different recipe, and it's awesome! Thanks to Epicurious, I made this heavenly banana bread. I just changed a few things, like reducing the sugar some and making one loaf with no nuts and the other with pecans (because I had no walnuts)- I actually preferred the loaf without the nuts. This bread is perfectly moist, perfectly sweet, and just so darn good. Try it, you'll love it.

And be careful with the oven, I badly burned my poor little thumb. I think I have more battle wounds from cooking than the kids who are bruised and scratched up from playing sports. I'm currently sporting a blister on my thumb and 2 fading scars are my right forearm from six months ago. That silly oven.

• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour


• 2 teaspoons baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 4 eggs at room temperature for 30 minutes (I set them out for 15 or so minutes while I was prepping the other ingredients)


• 2 cups sugar


• 1 cup vegetable oil


• 3 cups mashed ripe bananas (I used 7)


• 1/4 cup creme fraiche ( I used sour cream- who ever has 'creme fraiche' lying around?)


• 2 teaspoons vanilla


• 1 1/3 cups walnuts, chopped (I preferred the bread without nuts)

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter 2 (9 x 5 x 3 inch) metal loaf pans, then dust with flour, knocking out the excess flour.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt into a bowl.

Beat together eggs and sugar in bowl of electric mixer at medium-high speed until very thick and pale and mixture forms a ribbon when beater is lifted, about 10 minutes. Reduce speed to low and add oil in a slow stream, mixing, then mix in bananas, creme fraiche (or sour cream), and vanilla. Remove bowl from mixer and fold in flour mixture and nuts gently but thoroughly.

Divide batter between loaf pans, spreading evenly, and bake in middle of oven until golden brown and a wooden pick or skewer comes out clean, 1 to 1 hr. 15 minutes. (The loaf without nuts took 1 hour and 5 minutes, whereas the one with nuts took about 1 hr. and 20 minutes. Make sure you don't underbake. No one likes a doughy banana bread. Also, I covered the banana bread about 17 minutes into the cooking process with a lightly greased piece of aluminium foil).

Cool loaves in pans on a rack 10 minutes, then turn out onto rack. Cool completely.

Banana bread keeps wrapped well in plastic wrap at room temperature for 2 days or frozen for 1 month.

-amanda

Amanda's Apple Pie

I think I started making this apple pie 5 or 6 years ago or so. It is delicious- even with the prebought pie crust. You won't notice the not-so-homemade pie crust as the 1/2 cup of butter will make up the difference.

• 4 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled and sliced


• 1 cup sugar


• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon


• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg


• 1/2 cup butter, cut into small cubes


• 2 pie crusts (we use Pillsbury ready-made)


• vanilla ice cream (a must)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.


2. Place bottom crust in pie pan.


3. In a bowl, combine apples with sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Add to pie crust in pan.


4. Sprinkle on butter cubes.


5. Place top crust on pie, turning under and sealing edges.


6. Cut a few slits for pie to vent.


7. Bake for one hour


8. Serve with vanilla ice cream

Note: You might want to cover the crust with foil if it starts to turn too brown. The crust should be a golden color

*I'll post a picture next week when I make it for thanksgiving!*

Banana Muffins

These seriously are better than your banana muffin/bread recipe. I dare you to try them. You'll like them much better. They're not dry or mushy.

Here's the recipe that's better that yours ( I promise!!!)

• 1 cup sugar


• 1/3 cup butter, softened


• 2 eggs


• 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (3 or 4 medium)


• 1/3 cup water


• 1 2/3 cups all purpose flour


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1/2 teaspoon salt


• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1. heat oven to 350 degrees F.


2. Mix sugar and butter in bowl. Stir in eggs until blended. Add bananas and water, beat 30 seconds. Stir in remaining ingredients until moistened.


3. Pour into muffin tins (with cupcake liners). Bake for 18-25 minutes (check to see if done with toothpick)

Blueberry Crumb Bars

These were so simple to make and delicious too. I love blueberries- I really do. In the third grade, I did a report on blueberries- and now I bake with blueberries! This recipe is from allrecipes.com via Smitten Kitchen (who's writing a cookbook! I'm very excited.). I modified it a bit more.

Blueberry Crumb Bars

• 1/2 cup sugar


• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder


• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour


• 1/2 cup (1 stick) cold butter shredded on box grater or cut into tiny pieces


• 1/2 egg (whisk one egg and estimate 1/2 of it)


• 1/8 teaspoon salt


• splash of lemon juice


• 2 cups bluberries (fresh or frozen)


• 1/4 cup sugar


• 2 teaspoons corstarch

1. preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a 9 x 9 inch pan


2. In a small bowl, stir together 1 cup sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt. Use a fork, pastry cutter, or hands to blend in the butter and egg. Dough will be crumbly. Pat half of the dough into the pan


3. In another bowl, stir together the sugar, cornstarch, lemon juice, and bluberries. Sprinkle the bluberry mixture over the crust. Crumble remaining dough over the berry layer


4. bake in oven for 45 minutes, or until top is slightly brown. Cool completely (or throw in the fridge if you're impatient like me) before cutting into squares.

-amanda

The Best Pear/Apple Crisp Ever

I just love the Pionner Woman's website. All her food looks so delicious, but basically every recipe contains at least one stick of butter and a cup or so of heavy cream. Yikes. Surprisingly, she does not weigh 300 pounds. I have no idea how she does it. Maybe doing all those dishes from cooking so much is a good work out. She also lives a few hours away, which is pretty cool too.

On to the recipe... we had some pears to use up, so what do you do with pears that need to be eaten? You make a delicious pear crisp of course. This recipe is from the Pioneer Woman, tweaked a bit by me. It really is yummy. I am positive this would taste delicious with apples, but the cooking time might need to be adjusted.

The Best Pear/Apple Crisp

4-5 pears (PW says to have them firm, but mine were pretty ripe)
2/3 cup sugar (I would leave this out with pears. It was very sweet. With apples(granny smith of course), do 1/4 c. -1/2 c.)
1/4 tsp. salt
a shake or two of cinnamon
--
1 & 1/2 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
1/3 c. packed brown sugar
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 c. walnuts (she put pecans in, but I like walnuts better)
1 stick of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Peel, core, and dice pears (or apples). Place into a bowl and add desired sugar amount, salt, and cinnamon. Stir

In a separate bowl, combine flour, sugars, cinnamon, and walnuts. Stir together. Drizzle melted butter and stir.

Pour pears/apples into 9 x 9 (or the like) baking dish and top with the crumb topping. Bake for 30 minutes (with apples- depending on the thickness, 45-1 hr.).

Serve with vanilla ice cream. Yum

**picture from the Pioneer Woman**

-amanda abby