Strawberry Lemon Delight

Strawberry Lemon Sheet Cake - a delicious summer dessert

Cake Ingredients:

• 2 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 large eggs
• 3/4 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil 
• 1/4 cup of melted butter cooled (optional)
• 1 tablespoon grated lemon rind
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 

Strawberry Lemon Filling:

• 16 ounces of frozen strawberries
• 6 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/4 cup of fresh lemon juice
• 1/4 cup all purpose flour

Whipped Cream Filling:

• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 6 tablespoons sugar

For Strawberry Filling: 

1. Bring strawberries, lemon juice and 4 tablespoons of sugar to a boil in saucepan and cook for 5 minutes. 
2.  Whisk in the rest of the sugar and flour and cook over medium heat 5 minutes or until it thickens and bubbles around edges. 
3. Put in glass bowl and chill for at least 2 hours.

For the Cake:

1. Grease a 15 by 10 inch jellyroll pan and line with parchment paper and than grease the paper. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine cake flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in bowl
3. Whisk eggs, milk, oil, butter, lemon rind and juice until blended.  (I say the butter is optional because when I made this cake I stuck the butter in the freezer to cool it faster and completely forgot about it. So, my cake had no butter and it was still delicious!)
4. Add the dry ingredients in with the liquids and mix until blended.  Pour batter into pan.
5. Bake for 30 minutes.  Make sure a toothpick comes out clean
6. Cool in pan for 10 minutes on wire rack.  Remove from pan and cool on wire rack completely.

For Whipped Cream Filling:

1. Combine ingredients and beat at high speed with electric mixer until it stiffens.

The recipe makes a layered sheet cake, but I decided it would look prettier in a round glass dish so you could see the layers. So, I used by dish to cut the sheet cake in perfect circles. I put a cake than strawberry filling and topped it with whipped cream.  I repeated the layers and topped with strawberries. 

This was a lot of work, but it was absolutely delicious and worth it!

Recipe from Southern Living 2004 Annual Recipes Cookbook

Snickerdoodle

My favorite cookie is the snickerdoodle.  It doesn't get better than buttery cinnamon goodness.  This is hands down the best recipe for snickerdoodles.

What you need:
1/2 cup of softened butter
3/4 cup of sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon of vanilla bean paste
1 cup and 6 Tablespoons of all purpose flour
1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1 or 2 pinches of salt
For rolling: 1 Tablespoon sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 F and line baking sheet with parchment paper
In a medium sized mixing bowl mix flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.
In mixer bowl, cream butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla until fluffy.
Blend the flour mixture into the butter mixture to make dough
In a small bowl add sugar and cinnamon for rolling.  Roll dough into balls and than roll in mixture.
Bake for about 9 minutes.
I always check mine at 8 just to be sure - nothing is worse than a burnt snickerdoodle.

Makes roughly 20 medium to large cookies. - WARNING this dough is amazing raw, this is most likely the reason it makes roughly 20, I probably consume around 3 cookies while rolling it up.

I like to roll my dough up and drop them into a freezer bag and freeze them so I can pop a few out on days of sugar emergencies.

These cookies are best the day after baking - try to resist eating them all fresh out the oven.

Pallet Coffee Table

I hated my coffee table, so I made a new one.

My landlord was throwing away this rough pallet when I thought "hmm wouldn't that make a fun coffee table".  So, I dragged it up the stairs (literally dragged... wooden pallets are A LOT heavier than you think), sanded (sort of), and painted it.  

My pallet was REALLY rough and extremely dirty.  Half way thru the cleaning and sanding process I got impatient and half ass-ed the rest.  I only put two coats of paint because I wanted the wood to show thru.  I think it gives it a little something extra.

Still unsure of what I want to do about the base.  It is currently sitting on a Pier One papasan foot stool base that I already had.   It is pretty stable and will most likely stay,

Top it with glass and throw some magazine underneath and I have myself a fun, chic coffee table that was basically free!