Chocolate Sheet Cake

I had never made this recipe before. In fact, I've never made any sheet cake before, being one who prefers more height in my cake presentation. But I recently saw a photo of sheet cake pieces presented as pictured here. Two kind of loosely stacked and then covered with other good stuff, in this instance raspberries from Mom's last year's garden and a dollop of whipped cream. Yummy.

The cake was easy. Here's the recipe from the book, The Pioneer Woman Cooks, by Ree Drummond. Here's the cooking section of her blog. She's hilarious and completely endearing. She was on The View last Friday and I've seen her twice on Bonnie Hunt. Ree has been a part of my life since I started following her blog in 2007. I find her most amusing!

Chocolate Sheet Cake

Cake

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup buttermilk (or milk with 1/2 Tbsp white vinegar)

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 pound butter (2 sticks)

4 heaping Tbsp cocoa

1 cup boiling water

I tossed in a tsp of cinnamon just because. It wasn't in the recipe.

Icing

1 and 3/4 sticks butter

4 heaping Tbsp cocoa

6 Tbsp milk

1 tsp vanilla

1 pound powdered sugar (I used 3 and 3/4 cups)

1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional - I used ground pecans)

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a jelly roll pan (rimmed cookie sheet). Actually the recipe says to use an "ungreased pan" but I just couldn't do it. Go ahead if you want.
• In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.
• In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, eggs, vanilla, and baking soda.
• In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and add the cocoa. Whisk it together and then pour in the cup of boiling water. Allow it to bubble for a moment and then turn off the heat.
• Pour the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture and stir for a moment until it's cool enough to add the egg mixture.
• Stir in the egg mixture until smooth.
• Poor into the prepared cookie sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.

• While the cake is cooking, prepare the icing.
• Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the cocoa and stir until smooth.
• Add the milk and vanilla.
• Stir in the powdered sugar, followed by the pecans.

• Immediately after removing the cake from the oven, pour the warm icing over the top of the hot cake. Try to distribute the icing as evenly as possible so you can avoid having to fiddle with it too much.

I served mine with raspberries and whipped cream. Rich, chocolatey goodness.