Congratulatory Vanilla Almond Texas Sheet Cake

My friend and roommate, originally from Texas, recently got married in his home lone-star state. We were really bummed we couldn't make it down for the wedding but we decided to throw him a little surprise party. What would be more fitting than to make him some good old fashioned Texas sheet cake. I originally had in mind (read: bought the ingredients for and started making) a chocolate sheet cake when I had the sense to ask him if he even likes chocolate cake.

"Making chocolate cake for the blog, don't you just love chocolate cake"

"No, it's not my thing"

New plan.

I quickly searched for a vanilla cake recipe and found a white Texas sheet cake recipe all over the place but I wanted a little less almond flavor.

Here's what happened:

For the Cake
2 Cups of all purpose flour
2 Cups of sugar
1 Tsp of baking soda 
1/2 Cup of butter
1 Cup of water
1/2 Cup shortening
1/2 Cup of buttermilk
2 Eggs
1 Tsp of vanilla extract
1 Tsp of almond extract
1 Tsp of lemon zest.

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Grease and flour a half sheet pan/17in jelly roll pan.

1. In a large mixing bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, and baking soda.
2. Put the butter, water, shortening in a medium sauce pan on a low heat till totally melted and combined. Set aside till a little cooler.
3. In a smaller bowl beat the eggs, buttermilk, extracts and zest together.
4. Add all the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients stir until smooth.
5. Pour batter into prepared half sheet pan spread out evenly (It was very useful to have an angled spatula to make this cake) and set to bake for 20 minutes.

If you are like me, you are confused/concerned that the half sheet is way to shallow to bake a cake. It's not. It is a very thin sweet cake that is quick and great for a crowd.

While the cake was cooling. I made the frosting


For the Frosting:

1 Cup of very soft butter
3-4 Tbsp. of heavy cream.
1 Tsp. of vanilla extract
3 Cups of confectioners sugar.

1. Sift the confectioners sugar in a bowl and set aside.
2. With an electric hand mixer using the whisk attachments whisk the butter, heavy cream and vanilla together until smooth.
3. Adding the confectioners sugar a few tablespoons at a time continue mixing until you've used all the sugar up.