Little Texas cakes

One of my favorite jobs at the office is being the birthday baker. I assigned myself the job several years ago, mainly as a way to get to practice fun recipes and keep the majority of sweets out of my house. At the time, Wes still lived in Houston, so it would of been mainly me eating lots and lots of desserts. 

So, basically once a month I bring in a treat to the office that I have baked and we recognize all the birthdays that month. It is fairly easy since there are only 16 people in my office, and probably only 12 of them actually eat sweets. Myself included.  I will never be one of those girls who can turn down a piece of cake. It just ain't gonna happen.

Anyway, today I brought in my version of Little Debbie cakes. I am calling them "Little Texas" cakes though since the cake part is only the best cake in Texas, the chocolate sheet cake (sheath??). Yum


The idea is a complete steal from PW's devil dogs, recipe found here.  But, I went ahead and stuck with my sheet cake recipe, which I do believe is the absolute best. It is an old junior league recipe from southern Texas, courtesy of one of my mother's cookbooks. Actually the first cookbook she ever gave me, "Some Like it Hot."  And, I also went ahead and used two different types of frosting, just to spice things up a bit.

The cake recipe is one of my all time favorites and is incredibly easy. The chocolate icing that accompanies it is also completely delicious. However, for these Little Texas cakes, chocolate icing was just not going to cut it.  The top frosting is cream cheese, using my favorite recipe, found below:
Cream Cheese frosting

1 box cream cheese
1 stick butter
1 tsp vanilla
3-4 tsps half and half
A couple cups of powdered sugar (probably 3 or 4)

Cream the cream cheese and butter together.  Add in the sugar and vanilla and mix. To make it absolutely creamy, add in 2 tsps of half and half. Add in some more sugar. Add in another tsp of half and half. This is all obviously done to taste, until you get it to your desired texture.  It is wonderful!!

And the second frosting, serving as the glue that binds the cakes together, is made using this frosting recipe. It really is one of the best non-cream cheese frosting around. I only made up half of it though, and that was more than enough.

Some helpful hints if you plan on making these cakes. Let the cake completely cool, maybe even place it in the fridge. If you do this, your cake will be so much easier to slice into neat little shapes. I was not patient enough and immediately started working on making the fake little debbie cakes.  My edges are not neat at all, but the cakes still taste great. 


These were quite a hit at the office... and at home. I can't seem to keep my fingers out of the extra icing.