Lemon Sheet Cake from The Toasty Kitchen

Lemon Sheet Cake - made March 29, 2026 from The Toasty Kitchen 

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 tablespoons lemon zest

4 large eggs, room temperature

3 cups (336 grams) cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup whole milk, room temperature

1/4 cup lemon juice

Frosting

8 ounces block-style cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

3 1/2 cups (400 grams) confectioners sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a 9 x 13-inch baking pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy.
3. Add vanilla extract, lemon zest and eggs, one at time, mixing on low speed until combined.
4. In a separate bowl, whish together cake flour, baking powder and salt.
5. In a liquid measuring cup, combine lemon juice and milk.
6. Add half of the dry ingredients to butter mixture, mixing on low speed until just combined. Add half of the milk mixture, mixing until just combined. Add remaining dry ingredients, mixing until just combined then add remaining milk mixture, mixing until combined and smooth.
7. Pour batter in an even layer into prepared baking pan. Bake 30-34 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out with a few moist crumbs.
8. Remove cake from oven and let cool completely in the pan.
9. When cake is cool, make frosting. Beat together cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy, about 1-2 minutes. Add vanilla extract and salt, mixing until combined.
10. Add confectioners' sugar, half cup at a time, mixing on low speed until combined. Switch to high speed and beat until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
11. Spread frosting in an even layer over cooled cake. 

I wanted to like this recipe more than I did. I think it was partly my fault that I didn't make it correctly and partly maybe my expectations were different from the reality of how it turned out. First, as you can tell from the above picture, my frosting was rubbish. Despite the cream cheese being softened, I clearly didn't beat it to smoothness enough as I had little clumps of cream cheese in the frosting. Ugh. 

Second, I think I expected the texture to be softer since this exclusively uses cake flour. But it didn't turn out soft and fluffy like I had expected. I don't know whether I baked it too long, which is usually not an issue with me, or this is just how it was supposed to turn out. It wasn't dry. It also wasn't as lemony as I had hoped. Now that was definitely my fault as I only used the zest of 1 lemon, not 2. That was a deliberate mistake on my part as I got enough juice from 1 lemon and I didn't want to zest a second lemon just for the zest and not have a use for the juice. It sounds lame as I type this but with the price of everything going up these days, I'm more mindful than ever of not using more than I need or wasting an ingredient.

In hindsight, that wasn't the best decision if I wanted something more lemony. Still, the texture wasn't my favorite either so it's not the end of the world that I didn't use an extra lemon. I think my expectation was this would have the moisture and texture of a Texas sheet cake and it didn't. At least not the way I made it.

Crumbl Cookies Review #105 - Dubai-Style Chocolate Sandwich Cookie

Crumbl Cookies review #105 - Dubai-Style Chocolate Sandwich Cookie, visited April 6, 2026

Crumbl knows how to milk product extensions and since, presumably, the original Dubai brownie was so successful, they've done different iterations with "Dubai" as the theme.

This week, they married their recent "thin" cookies with the filling from their Dubai chocolate products to make this Dubai-Style Chocolate Sandwich cookie. I don't care for thin cookies myself but they make sense when used as a sandwich cookie. Plus, I really like the kataifi filling Crumbl uses. The few non-Crumbl Dubai confections I've tried from other places don't measure up to Crumbl's.

The thin cookies themselves were a bit chewy with crisp edges. Not my favorite but they worked well for this sandwich cookies. Plus, again, I really liked the filling. Overall, I enjoyed this cookie. I don't think I need to get it again now that I've tried it but I don't regret getting it.

This had a $1.99 surcharge so the total from my local store came to $7.31. A bit steep for a cookie but okay for a sometime-indulgence. With all the madness going on these days, sometimes you have to find your small joys where you can. I ate this over two days to spread that joy (and the calories) around. Despite my preference for freshly baked cookies, I think this might have been even better the second day from a texture standpoint. The kataifi filling was still crunchy but the thin cookies weren't as chewy and were easier to eat.

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Sweet Bread from Findatorr

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Sweet Bread - made January 22, 2026 from Findatorr 

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs

1 cup buttermilk or whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cinnamon Sugar Topping

2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a 9 x 5-inch loaf pan.
2. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and cinnamon.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk together the melted butter, eggs, buttermilk or milk and vanilla extract until smooth and well-combined.
4. Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, stirring until just combined. Do not overmix; batter should be thick and slightly lumpy.
5. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan and smooth the top with a spatula. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
6. Prepare the topping: while the bread is baking, combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. 
7. Once the bread is out of the oven, brush the top with the melted butter and generously sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture over entire loaf. Cool before cutting and serving.

I'm behind on my blogging, hence the rush and frequency of the last several posts. But I wanted to make sure I logged this one as it was delicious. If you're a fan of quick breads and/or cinnamon-sugar combinations, this is a good one to make.

The texture was soft and fluffy. Don't underbake it or it'll be dense and mushy. The bread itself wasn't overly sweet which makes the cinnamon sugar topping a perfect addition to bring that sweetness.

I like finding good quick bread recipes as they're easy to make, take little time and, if you bake them in mini loaves, are a good addition to holiday gifts. Dress them up in a pretty paper loaf pan, wrap in cellophane and tie with sparkly ribbon. I didn't discover or make this recipe until January of this year so I missed the 2025 holiday season but I'm definitely adding this to my holiday gift giving later this year.

Gooey Coconut Cake from Cooking with Carla

Ooey Gooey Coconut Cake - made January 24, 2026, modified from Cook with Carla

Cake base

1 14.25-ounce box of white cake mix

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs

1/2 cup sweetened, flaked coconut

Creamy topping

8 ounces cream cheese, softened

4 cups powdered sugar

1 teaspoon coconut extract (I used vanilla extract and vanilla bean paste)

2 large eggs

1/2 cup coconut flakes

Toasted coconut flakes for garnish, optional

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 9 x 13 pan with foil and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Mix together cake mix, melted butter and eggs until a soft dough forms. Fold in coconut flakes. Spread in an even layer in prepared pan.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together cream cheese and powdered sugar. Add coconut extract and eggs, beating until smooth. Spread in an even layer over cake base, covering base completely. Sprinkle with coconut if desired.
4. Bake 40-45 minutes until golden on top with a soft wobble in the center. Let cool completely before cutting and serving.

One of my more irritating habits is I will find a recipe I want to make, buy the ingredients for it, then not make it. I have other irritating habits but that one's becoming even more irritating given the sharp increases in prices over the past year. For this one, I had bought a white cake mix for a recipe I can't even remember anymore. And the cake mix was approaching its "best buy" date. From my experience working at the food bank, I know the product doesn't really expire or go bad until months after that best buy date. But still, I didn't want to go much longer without using up the stupid cake mix, particularly since the cost of it nearly doubled from the time I bought it to this year.

Fortunately, there turned out to be a plethora of recipes that use white cake mix. Added bonus that I had cream cheese to use up which I definitely did not want to use beyond its best buy date.

This cake lived up to its name. It was gooey but not overly mushy. And it was good. I love all things coconut anyway and the coconut added a nice chewiness to prevent the cake from being mushy but still supporting the gooey.

I liked this cake and next time I end up with a white cake mix I need to use, I'd definitely make this cake again.

Online Bakery Review: Fat & Weird Cookie (Florida)

Online Bakery Review: Fat & Weird Cookie (Florida) - arrived January 27, 2026 

I love discovering new, small business cookie businesses to support. If I can't find one locally, there's always the big wide world of the internet.

Fat & Weird Cookie crossed my online browsing and I was tempted enough to...er...bite. At the time, there was a special running so I was able to get 4 cookies of my choice plus a "mystery" 4-pack (which means their choice of what to send me) for $32.99 which included shipping. If you've ever bought online baked goods before, you know that's a deal.

I ended up with 8 fat (and weird) cookies. I'm only picturing 7 as I gave the Peanut Butter Fluffernutter to my niece and didn't get a picture of it first. The "fat" part of the cookies (besides the obvious in terms of ingredients) is they're nicely chubby cookies stuffed with filling. The fun is picking which combination you want to indulge in.

Getting Toasted (Creme Brulee)

And these cookies are definitely an indulgence. Size-wise, they're a little deceptive looking in that, in terms of radius, they're not as big as other commercially available cookies, like the T-Rex cookies, for example. But because they are so fat in terms of stuffing and chunkiness, they pack a punch. A good one.

Cookie Terrestrial

In general, I found these cookies delicious, no matter the flavor or the combination with stuffing. They're best if you warm them up in an air fryer for a few minutes. The outside gets a little crisp (but not hard) and the stuffing gets melty. So the texture is fabulous.

Starboy

I particularly liked the ones with caramel and chocolate chips. You really can't beat a melty caramel and chocolate combination.

Part of the mystery pack

I didn't take a picture of the wrapping on this blue one so I forgot what it's called or what the stuffing was. Taste-wise this was good but it was probably my least favorite. While the others would get a score of 4 or 5 on a 5-point scale, this one would get a 3 at best. I just don't like blue food. I don't like the concept of the dye coursing through my system (I'm even a little leery of the red dye in red velvet these days). Plus I wasn't a fan of the creamy filling on this one.

But overall, these were terrific cookies. I don't see the same $32.99 deal for 8 cookies anymore though. Which is probably just as well as my A1C levels need to decrease before I put in another order. Which I will someday as these cookies were pretty good.

Big Sexy

Grande Sexy

The Party Animal

Part of the mystery pack - I'm not a fan of the blue filling