Julie's Irresistible Pecan Pie

Not a pecan pie fan? Well maybe you need to reconsider. This recipe has been a work in progress over the years and last year it finally became perfected. So I'm proud to say that I've had people tell me that they've hated pecan pie until they've had mine. I hope that you will try to make this pie and give pecan pie a whirl...it's my most favorite pie ever!

Julie's Irresistible Pecan Pie

Crust:
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
½ cup butter, chilled
4 tablespoons ice water (OR a prepared store bought 9” pie shell)

In a medium bowl, combine flour, salt and white sugar. Cut butter into flour mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Gradually sprinkle the water over the dry mixture, stirring until dough starts to come together. Then, using one hand, squeeze dough together until it forms a nice ball. Remove to countertop and shape into a 5” flat disc. Remember not to handle the dough too much or you will start melting the butter. Cover dough in plastic wrap and place in refrigerator for 20-30 minutes. Just until pie mixture is made.

Pie:
3 eggs
1 cup corn syrup
1 ½ tablespoons molasses
¾ cup brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter, softened
1 pinch salt
1 ½ - 2 cups pecans, chopped

In another medium bowl, combine first 6 ingredients, add pecans and thoroughly combine. Set aside.

Remove pie crust and lightly flour countertop surface, roll crust dough out into a large circle, place into ungreased pie plate. Remove extra dough and crimp using two fingers and thumb. Re-stir pie mixture and pour into pie plate. Place pie into a preheated 350 F degree oven. Bake for 50-60 minutes. Be careful and watch crust so that it doesn’t burn. Place strips of tin foil around edges if crust starts to get too dark. Let pie cool completely before serving.

Swedish Pancakes

I absolutely love Swedish Pancakes! With my mother being Swedish, we grew up on these as kids and I've made sure that I pass the tradition onto my kids as well. I have fond memories of family get-togethers where my aunts and uncles would make LARGE batches of batter and spend at least an hour or more taking turns at the stove pouring the batter, waiting for it to cook, flipping it and then serving it. Only to have it disappear within seconds. These thin, delicate pancakes resemble the French pancake called a Crepe. The recipe differs slightly from country to country.

We eat our Swedish pancakes with a variety of toppings depending on our preference that day. My favorite is the classic way of eating them, with lingonberries. I stock up on jars of lingonberry preserves from Ikea when we head up North. My kids like it with just plain maple syrup, but we've been known to have sliced bananas, a triple berry mix and top it off with Cool Whip or chocolate syrup. Anything would be yummy...applesauce with a dash of cinnamon and maple syrup is good also. Go ahead and play with your choice of toppings. But make these pancakes sometime, they're worth the time and effort.

Swedish Pancakes

4 eggs
3 cups milk
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teas. salt
3 tbls. sugar
3 tbls. butter, melted

In a blender, add eggs and milk. Blend until combined. In a small bowl sift in dry ingredients. With the blender on low, add in dry ingredients a couple spoonfuls at a time until thoroughly combined. Add in melted butter and mix until all ingredients make a smooth, thin batter.

Using a small frying pan or a Swedish style flat pan, lightly grease the pan with some butter on a paper towel. Add 1/4 cup of batter to the pan, and quickly swirl the batter around to cover the bottom of the surface. After about 1-2 minutes, the edges should loosen with spatula. Lift and flip over and cook the other side of pancake for another 1-2 minutes and remove. Cooked pancakes can be stored in a 200 F degree oven until ready to eat.

Spread desired toppings down the middle of pancake, and with one end of the pancake roll up into a tube-like shape. Serve warm or cold depending on toppings. Enjoy!

Julie's Peach Cobbler

If you haven't taken the time to enjoy the peaches from your local grocer or friendly neighbor who's been so kind to let you pick their peaches, then hurry up and get some and make this cobbler. It's our family's favorite!

Once again, I've made a recipe that has no exact amounts to the ingredients. Because the topping can be adjusted to fit any amount of peaches, I usually go by the size of the baking dish to determine how much topping I'm going to make. In this recipe, I used a 9 x 13 inch baking dish with sliced peaches filled to about 1 1/2 inches full. And yes, there is one stick of butter being used in this recipe but one stick is really not much for a 9 x 13 pan. So enjoy...

Julie's Peach Cobbler

5-12 peaches, washed, pitted and sliced
3-4 tbls. sugar (depending on sweetness of peaches)
1/2 teas. ground nutmeg
1 teas. ground cinnamon

Prepare peaches and place into a large mixing bowl. Coat with sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon and toss until fully mixed. Set aside. Preheat oven to 400 F degrees.

Topping:
1 1/2 cups yellow cake mix, dry
1 cup oatmeal
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 teas. ground cinnamon
1 stick of butter (not margarine) at room temperature, sliced
Vanilla ice cream, optional

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the first 4 ingredients. Mix and add in sliced butter. Using a pastry blender or fork, cut in the butter until mixture resembles a doughy crumble.

Pour prepared peaches into a 9 x 13 baking dish and top with crumble mixture. Bake in preheated oven for 30-40 minutes until medium golden brown on top and peaches have bubbled on the sides. Remove and let cool for 10 minutes before serving. Serve with ice cream, if desired.

Blueberry Yogurt Cake

I made this cake for my hubby for his birthday this year and realized after I had scanned through some photos that I had not bothered to post the recipe here on my blog. It was so versatile and so yummy that I needed to make sure that other people knew of this fabulous dessert. I found the recipe online and after looking over the recipe I also realized that it can be changed up to whatever flavor of yogurt fits your taste.
Blueberry Yogurt Cake

1 box Betty Crocker® SuperMoist® white cake mix
3/4 cup water
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 egg whites
1 container (6 oz) blueberry yogurt (with fruit)
1 container Betty Crocker® Whipped vanilla frosting
1 pint of fresh blueberries
1 jar of all-fruit blueberry jam

Heat oven to 350°F (325°F for dark or nonstick pans). Generously grease and lightly flour bottoms and sides of two 8-inch or 9-inch round pans, or spray with baking spray with flour.

In large bowl, beat cake mix, water, oil, egg whites and yogurt with electric mixer on low speed 30 seconds; beat on medium speed 2 minutes (batter will be lumpy). Pour into pans.

Bake 8-inch rounds 27 to 32 minutes, 9-inch rounds 25 to 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Run knife around sides of pans to loosen cakes; remove from pans to cooling rack. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

Stir jam to loosen and spread 1/2 cup jam over 1 cake layer to within 1/4 inch of edge. Layer some blueberries over jam. Top with second layer. Frost side and top of cake with frosting. Make frosting dollops in a circle in center of cake. Arrange more blueberries on top and place some around the perimeter of the cake. Store loosely covered in refrigerator.

My favorite Frosting:
1 large tub of Cool Whip
1 small pkg. of White Chocolate instant-pudding mix

Pour pudding mix into Cool Whip and fold until thoroughly combined. Let the frosting sit for about 20 minutes to thicken. Spread on cake.

The Essential Chewy Oatmeal Cookie

This cookie was absolutely amazing! The flavor reminded me of something you could enjoy during the Fall season. I got the recipe from a cookbook my mother in-law had called The Best of the Best. I think it was the best oatmeal cookies I've had in a long time. It held true to it's name. I hope you'll try them!

Before I give you the recipe, I need to comment on the ingredients first. First off, I replaced most of the shortening with a 1/2 cup of unsweetened applesauce. Second, I don't understand why it needed corn syrup and milk? If you understand some of the science of baking, you would know what I'm talking about. Those items are added for moisture, which you need to soften the oatmeal, but with the extra applesauce I felt it was a waste of ingredients. So I will leave adding those to your recipe up to you. I personally didn't think it needed it. But on the other hand, I know corn syrup can help with chewiness which is why I loved this recipe. Ah, what the heck, just add all the ingredients it asks for except try cutting back on the butters with the applesauce. It sure was a yummy cookie! And finally, it also states at the end of the recipe to lightly grease your baking sheet. If you are using a metal one, then you will need to do this step or line it with some parchment paper. I used my baking stone and it had a slight resistance when I removed them with my spatula (a good thing from a well seasoned stone). So on with the recipe:

The Essential Chewy Oatmeal Cookie

1/2 c. unsalted butter, softened
1/2 c. vegetable shortening
1/2 sugar
1 c. brown sugar
2 teas. vanilla extract
1/4 teas. almond extract
3/4 teas. cinnamon
1/8 teas. ground cloves
1/4 teas. nutmeg
1 teas. salt
1 teas. baking soda
1 large egg
6 tbls. corn syrup
2 tbls. milk
1 1/2 c. flour
1 c. raisins
1 c. chopped pecans/walnuts
3 cup old fashioned oats

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease baking sheet; set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream together butter, shortening and sugars until smooth. Add in vanilla and almond extracts and spices, salt and baking soda. Beat in egg, corn syrup and milk. Add in flour, raisins, nuts and oats. Thoroughly combine, scoop onto baking sheet and bake for 11-13 minutes (depending on oven) until golden brown. Let cool for 2 minutes and then remove from baking sheet onto a cooling rack. Makes approx. 30-40 cookies depending on size.

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

Since it's zucchini season, I decided that this would be the perfect time to pull out our favorite chocolate recipe that hides this yummy veggie and makes this cake very moist. My friend Rick loves this recipe and couldn't seem to quit with just one piece when I recently brought it to a potluck. He has no problems with veggies being mixed into his favorite desserts. He only wished he had a glass of milk to go with it. LOL! So for those of you who might have an abundance of zucchini in your gardens this season, this would be the perfect recipe to help use some of them up. Go ahead...give it a try...you won't regret it!

Chocolate Zucchini Cake

1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 teas. vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teas. baking soda
1 teas. salt
2 cups shredded zucchini
1 egg
1/4 cup water

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Grease and flour a 9 x 13" baking dish.

In a large bowl, mix together the oil, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Add the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Fold in zucchini, egg and water. Spread evenly into prepared pan.

Bake for 25-30 minutes in preheated oven until toothpick comes out clean. Cool completely before adding frosting. Slice and serve.

Oatmeal Toffee Graham bars

It would appear by the amount of bar cookie-type recipes I have on this blog, that I really love to make bar cookies. Which is really not the case, but I have found lately that I really like the amount of different layers and flavors you get when you eat a bar cookie. And I must say that this recipe really fits in that category. I think this recipe is definately going to get rave reviews from all of you and those who get to savor it's every layer. Although I can't take the credit for the recipe, I will kindly say that BHG.com has a winner of a treat.

Oatmeal Toffee Graham Bars

8-12 whole graham crackers (rectangles)
1 1/2 cups oatmeal
3/4 cup white sugar
3/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbls. flour
2/3 cup butter, melted
1 egg
1 teas. vanilla
1 (12 oz.) pkg. semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped or silvered almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Line a 9 x 13" baking pan with foil, extending foil beyond edges of pan. Arrange whole graham crackers in a single layer in prepared pan. Cut grahams into smaller pieces to fit into smaller areas.

In a large bowl combine the oats, sugars, and flour. Stir in melted butter, egg, and vanilla until well combined. Spoon over graham crackers and spread evenly to edges of pan to cover graham crackers.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until oat mixture bubbles and is lightly browned on top. Remove from oven and sprinkle with chocolate pieces. Return to oven for 1 minute. Remove from oven. Spread melted chocolate over top to cover. Evenly sprinkle with almonds. Cool in pan on a wire rack. Use foil to lift from pan. Cut or break into bars.

Notes: You may change the chocolate chips to milk chocolate or bittersweet depending your liking. And you may also change the almonds to pecans or for the real extreme...coconut!

Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake

I discovered this recipe just recently on one of my favorite websites ever. It's a homemade from scratch chocolate sheet cake that is too die for. The recipe does call for almost a full pound of butter (no subs) so if you can get over that, you'll enjoy every bite of the cake. I brought this cake to a potluck picnic we attended this past weekend and let's just say there was very little of it leftover. If mine had been the only dessert, I'm sure there would have only been crumbs left behind. The recipe was pretty easy, but done in steps...so hang in there! It's worth it in the end.

Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake

Combine in a mixing bowl:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
(set aside)

In a saucepan, melt:
2 sticks butter and add 4 heaping tablespoons cocoa. Stir together.
Add 1 cup boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat.

Pour over flour mixture, and stir lightly to cool.

In a glass measuring cup:
1/2 cup buttermilk.
Add: 2 beaten eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.

While cake is baking, make icing:
Chop 1/2 cup pecans finely.
Melt 1 3/4 sticks butter in a saucepan.
Add 4 heaping tablespoons cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat.

Add 6 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 lb minus 1/2 cup powdered sugar, stir together. Add pecans, stir together, and pour over warm cake.

Cut into squares, eat, and totally wig out over the fact that you just made the best chocolate sheet cake. EVER.

Oatmeal & Peanut Butter Swirl Bars

Yes, this recipe does have chocolate in it, but the dominating flavors in these scrumptous bars are oatmeal and peanut butter. Two of my most favorite flavors in a cookie or bar recipe. When I came across this recipe on the back of a 10 lb. bag of flour and saw it's list of ingredients, I knew I had to make them. My curiousity always gets the best of me when it comes to recipes.

Oatmeal & Peanut Butter Swirl Bars

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 teas. baking soda
1/2 teas. salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup old fashioned oatmeal
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Icing:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
2 tbls. peanut butter
2 tbls. milk
(Mix together in a small bowl while bars are baking and set aside.)

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.

In a medium sized mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars. Add egg and peanut butter and mix well. Stir in soda, salt, flour and oatmeal. Press into a 9 x 13" baking dish. Sprinkle chocolate chips over top. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from oven and drizzle with icing. Spread the icing into the melted chocolate chips to create a swirl or marbled look. Cool completely. Cut into squares and... devour!

Note: the consistency of this mixture is a thicker cookie dough. It should be a little hard to spread into the baking dish. Just be patient and it will cover the entire dish.

Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes

I made these cupcakes for a friend last month for her birthday. The cupcake recipe itself was too die for! I love making cake batters from scratch now. It's really hard to go back to a box mix once you find some really yummy recipes that turn out really good from home. If you have some good recipes on hand, then you can always make a cake batter whenever you need one. Lemon just happens to be one of my most favorite cake flavors and when I came across this recipe, I had to try it. Especially when I saw that it had buttermilk as one of its ingredients.

The flowers on top of these cupcakes are made from melting candy chocolates. The were so easy and of course, my mind flooded with tons more ideas for future chocolate creations. I saw the idea online on one of favorite baking blogs. Here's the link for the instructions: http://bakerella.blogspot.com/2008/05/wow-your-mom-on-mothers-day.html You should scroll through her blog and see all the cute stuff she creates. Clicking on the blog title will bring you back to the most current post and scroll from there.

Lemon Buttermilk Cupcakes

1 1/4 cups cake flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teas. salt
1 1/4 cups whole milk or buttermilk (Note: Buttermilk is better with the lemon extract or use whole milk with 1 teas. vanilla extract for a plain white cake.)
4 large egg whites
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 teas. lemon extract

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Line muffin pan with cupcake liners or grease two 9" cake pans.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl with a whisk attachment at medium speed, cream butter and sugar together until soft and creamy. Add in 1/2 of milk and egg mixture. Mix until combined. Slowly add in 1/3 of flour mixture and alternate with milk mixture and flour mixture until the batter is thoroughly combined and homongenous. Finally, give the batter another 2 minutes of mixing to make sure all lumps have been removed. Divide the batter into the cupcake liners or cake pans. Bake for 20-25 minutes for cupcakes and 30-35 minutes for 9" cake pans. Bake until a light golden color and test with a toothpick to make sure the insides are completely baked. Transfer to a cooling rack. Make sure that cakes are cooled before frosting.

Lemon Buttercream frosting

3/4 cup softened butter
3 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a medium mixing bowl until smooth.

Family Proclamation Cookies

For most of you, you may be familiar with this document put out by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. It's the Proclamation to the World about the family unit. I am posting this recipe because...#1 - it is a recipe and #2 - I think it would be a fun Family Home Evening idea for anyone who needs yet another idea.

I came across this cute recipe idea from a website called http://www.sugardoodle.net/ and thought this woman's idea was very creative. You can go there for the actual posting and her ideas for the cookies. I have added my own revisions to the recipe, since it seemed kind of scattered and worded funny. I, myself, added the last line "Enjoy for Eternity". Because I felt like our families would be for eternity and you could use the recipe for eternity. :0)

For the month of May, we had the theme of "Family" in Sharing time and I used this recipe to top off my lesson yesterday. I don't have a picture of the actual cookies because they are just your basic chocolate chip cookies. They are pretty good and probably deserved to have their picture taken, but they were gobbled up too fast for me to think, "oh, I've got to get a picture!".

Family Proclamation Cookies

Combine together.....

1 Husband (one stick of butter)
1 Wife (one stick of Butter)

Blend these two together (marriage)

Add: all the blessings of the Priesthood. (One egg) ANDAll the things that a Father does for the family: Provides, Protects, Presides over the family in love in righteousness. (Add another egg)

Combine: 3/4 cup of Nurturing love by our Mother (white sugar)

Add: 3/4 cup of Gospel teaching by Mother and Father (brown Sugar)

Stir in...
2-1/4 cups of Faithful, respectful, Obedient, compassionate children (flour)

Add:
1 teaspoon of Repentance (salt)

1 teaspoon of Prayer (soda)

1 teaspoon of Forgiveness (vanilla)

Mix well, and add 2 cups of unselfish SERVICE! (chocolate chips)
(Ask children to name some service ideas, as they add the chocolate chips.)

Combine all ingredients for the recipe of a Happy Home Cookie, and drop by spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. Bake in Sunshine (oven) at 375 F degrees for 9-11 minutes.

Enjoy for Eternity...

Ricotta Lemon Cookies

Don't these cookies look so fun? And wait until you taste these soft, little pillows of yumminess in your mouth. They're absolutely delightful! I got this recipe from an online website. And thought every aspect of the recipe was right on. Other than I wasn't too sure about the really small amount of butter and shortening in the icing though. I think it helped make the icing look glossy and helped the icing dry without cracking. Oh, and my kids loved these. You can even get the younger ones to help put the sprinkles on.

Ricotta Lemon Cookies
1/2 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 lb. ricotta cheese
1 teas. vanilla extract
2 cups flour
1/2 teas. baking powder
1/2 teas. baking soda

Icing:
1/4 cup lemon juice
1/4 teas. butter, softened
1/4 teas. shortening
2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Colored sprinkles

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees. Grease baking sheets or line with parchment paper.

In a large bowl, cream together the butter and sugar. Beat in egg, add ricotta cheese and vanilla. Combine the flour, baking powder and baking soda. Drop by rounded spoonfuls onto prepared baking sheets. Bake in preheated oven for 10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool completely before removing from baking sheets.

For the icing: Combine ingredients into a small mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly to remove any lumps. Dip each cookie into the icing and place a small pinch of sprinkles on top. Let cookies drip and set on wire racks. Makes 40-50 small bite-size cookies.

Pecan and Coconut Bars

For those family members who attended their father's retirement party back in February would know that I was obsessed with a certain pecan and coconut bar that day. I believe I had at least 5 bars in the time we were there. I had hoped to get the recipe but discovered the baker who made them didn't like to give out her recipes. Which I can completely understand since I have a blue ribbon-winning frosted sugar cookie recipe I've yet to share with anyone to this day. So I was in search of the next best thing...a recipe I discovered on the back of a Western Family brand brown sugar bag. The bar I had at the retirement party was so ooey-gooey and caramelly and so full of yumminess. So I had high hopes when I tried these and to my disappointment the bars came out of the oven too dry and hard... as you can see from the picture. I don't know about you, but I often wonder if the recipes you find on the back of certain food items are actually tried and true, tested recipes. They gave the recipe "possession" as if it belonged to someone. But there is still hope for this recipe because the only thing I believe was wrong with the recipe was the baking time. I will include the time I think will make them more ooey-gooey. I also used fresh, grated coconut from a local health food store that's sugar-free. It's a much more natural product that I've come to appreciate. You may want to sprinkle over the top of the bars just about 5 mins. before they come out of the oven, those new Kraft Caramel bits. They will make them more caramelly. Bake the crust and while it's baking, hurry and make the topping so that you can immediately spread the topping on top of the crust without it cooling down. It's quicker and you'll have your dessert ready to go within 45 minutes.

Pecan and Coconut Bars

1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup flour

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.

Combine ingredients and press into a 9x13 baking dish. Bake for 12-15 minutes or until light brown. Meanwhile...

Filling:
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 teas. vanilla extract
3 tbls. flour
1 teas. baking powder
1/4 teas. baking soda
1 cup chopped pecans (gem size)
1 cup shredded coconut

Combine ingredients in medium sized bowl. Carefully spread filling over baked crust upon removing from the oven. Bake an additional 15-18 minutes. (Optional: add caramel bits at about 13 minutes and continue baking). Remove. Cool completely before cutting and serving.

Soft Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cookies

This is a recipe I found in the latest edition of the Food & Family magazine from Kraft. If you have never received this FREE magazine before you need to go to http://www.kraftfoods.com/ and sign up for it. It is mailed out at least 4 times a year. I highly recommend it! What company mails out a magazine filled with tons of recipes for free to it's customers? No one but Kraft!

Soft Chocolate-Peanut Butter Cookies

1 pkg. devil's food cake mix
4 oz. cream cheese, softened (1/2 a block)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1 egg

Preheat oven to 375 F.

Place all ingredients in a large bowl. Beat with electric mixer or mix using a stand mixer on low for 2 mins. Beat on medium for additional 2 minutes.

Shape into 1 inch balls or use small cookie scoop. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Flatten each ball using the tines of a fork in a criss-cross pattern. Sprinkle tops with sugar.

Bake 8-10 minutes or until edges of cookies are set. Cool 2 minutes before removing to wire cooling racks. Then cool completely before serving. Makes 3 1/2 dozen.

NOTE: try using the chuncky style peanut butter for more texture and color.

Banana Cake

Monkeys will be jealous when they see you eating this cake (if you happen to be eating it in front of monkeys that is). I found this recipe through another site and after seeing it's reviews, I decided to try it. I was surprised by the recipe at first. For two reasons, one because the amounts were a little off to me. I noticed there was no egg and that the amount of flour would not be enough to keep the cake from being runny. I also notice that lemon juice was in the recipe and after seeing how the cake came out, I believe it was to help the bananas from turning brown when baked. I've never had a light colored banana bread before. And I believe that helped with it's color. Also, when making this, I wondered how the cake's density would turn out. If it would be more of a light cake or more of a dense banana bread. Let's just say it's BOTH! A pleasant perfect medium. So with my additions and adjustments, I came up with this recipe.

Banana Cake
1/2 cup shortening, softened
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup milk
1 teas. vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teas. baking soda
1/2 teas. baking powder
1/2 teas. salt
2 ripe bananas, mashed
1 teas. lemon juice
1 container of vanilla flavored frosting
Optional: 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped

Preheat oven to 350 degrees (F) and grease a 9 x 13 inch baking pan. Set aside.

In a large bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar until smooth. Add egg. Stir in milk and vanilla. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir into the sugar mixture. Mix in mashed banana, lemon juice and walnuts (if desired). Spread evenly into prepared baking pan.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Let cake cool completely in the pan on a wire rack before frosting and cutting. Enjoy!