This past weekend the family got together for birthday celebrations and milestones. My son, Asher, turned 18 years old this week. It’s hard to believe how fast the time has gone.
Now he’s all legal. Thinks he is, too. *sigh*
I remember 18, do you? Probably just as cocky, too. He’s not really cocky but thinks he knows it all. Like they all do at that age I guess. He’s headed for graduation in May and then in June his life starts as a full time working adult for about 2 months. Then it turns into school 3 days a week and work 2 days a week.
He’s gotten into a special program with Toyota and will be attending a fairly local college in August and working, too. I’m proud of him but I also understand that’s a lot of pressure for a young person.
So, he’s going through transition pains right now, with friends about to be going in all different directions after high school graduation and his life changing in ways he can’t even imagine yet.
For his birthday dinner, we had barbecue and my homemade cheesy potatoes at his request. For the grand finale, we had chocolate cake, keep reading and I’ll share the story behind this cake and its recipe.
chocolate sheet cake with pecans
Back to the celebrations and milestones part…
Celebrations aren’t complete without a cake, right? I dug out an oldie but oh so goodie recipe for this momentous occasion. Chocolate Sheet Cake with pecans. Oh my. This cake is to die for.
You may notice I wrote on the recipe Short Cake but I call it a sheet cake. It’s been too long to know if I just wrote it down wrong or if that’s what it truly is. I looked up shortcake and that just means it has a lot of butter and usually more of a fluffy biscuit like consistency, think strawberry shortcake. This cake tastes like cake, it’s moist and not dry like biscuits but it does have a lot of butter in it! 3 sticks including the frosting.
Another note if you make the cake: I don’t bother buying buttermilk. You can add 1/2 a teaspoon of vinegar to half a cup of milk to get the same results. Also, I used margarine not butter. I know. I’ve been using real butter for everything lately because it’s supposed to be better for you but sometimes you just don’t mess with perfection.
Oh one more thing, the pan. Back in the day, my grandma had a jelly roll pan she called it. I wish I had hers. I bought a pan specifically for this recipe, it even has a lid! Oh my, I was excited about that. It’s not quite the right size though.
My pan is slightly bigger because I learned from my mistake in the past of using a deep cookie sheet that I thought would work some years back. It didn’t. The batter went everywhere and baked over the pan making a mess. My pan is from Walmart I think and is 11×18 inches. So I just baked the cake a little less, I think just 15 minutes so it wouldn’t dry out and it didn’t.
I also spelled cocoa wrong… I’m going to blame that one on a self induced happy sugar coma.
This recipe was dictated to me by a friend’s mother a good 31 plus years ago. Before my husband and I were married, a gang of us would gather at our friend Stacey’s house. She lived with her mom and every weekend we would go over there and play board games, watch TV or just eat and talk. We lived in Kentucky and there wasn’t much to do. But we made such good memories. I was in my very early twenties. Crazy how life goes so fast.
Everything Linda made (that was Stacey’s mom’s name) was delicious. This might be the only recipe I have from her though. I’m so glad I still have it. If you look close at the creases in the paper folds, there are singe marks. That was from the house fire we had. How this recipe book made it through that is a miracle. It must’ve been still in a box. The fire broke out just 2 weeks after we had bought our house.
I try to make these fleeting gatherings that our little family has special. Really treating them like a celebration… like they are. I had balloons and hung up streamers. I had the number candles on the cake. It’s not the amount of money you spend, it’s the effort you put in to being together and celebrating life’s milestones and even the little things.
I hope that Asher remembers fondly the little home parties we have together. And I hope he feels special and loved because he is and that’s why I do this.
He’s growing up and I’m having to learn to let go. It’s hard and I’m struggling. His life is really just beginning. But I need to remember that I’ve raised him right and that hopefully, he’ll want to spend time with us again. It’s just growing pains for us all.
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some of my paintings
Learn more about me on the ‘About’ page under the additional links menu. I’m an artist – a painter mostly and an avid gardener. I paint a variety of subjects including birds, koi fish, my gardens, ponds and flowers as well as anything having to do with nature especially trees and tropical scenes. I also enjoy painting abstracts and have started created more and more of them. My most favorite thing to try to achieve in my painting is is mystery and telling mystical stories.
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