January 29, 2010

PW's Chocolate Sheet Cake

Well folks, I promised a recipe this week, so here it is. If you don't know who The Pioneer Woman is, well you must be living under a rock, and you need to check out her website and cookbook immediately. My big butt thanks her for all her wonderfully delicious recipes, especially this one. I'm just going to copy this directly from her cookbook. Here's what you'll need:

Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk (if you don't have buttermilk you can add 1 Tbsp vinegar to just under 1/2 cup of regular milk)
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 lb (2 sticks) butter
4 heaping Tbsp cocoa powder

Icing:
1 3/4 sticks butter
4 heaping Tbsp cocoa powder
6 Tbsp milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 lb powdered sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (optional)

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Stir together and set aside.
3. In another bowl, mix the buttermilk, eggs, vanilla and baking soda. Mix with a fork and set aside.
4. In a medium saucepan, melt the butter and add the cocoa.
5. Whisk together to combine. Meanwhile, bring 1 cup water to a boil.
6. When the butter is melted, pour the boiling water in the pan. Allow to bubble for a moment, then turn off the heat.
7. Pour the chocolate mixture into the flour mixture.
8. Stir together for a moment to cool the chocolate, then pour in the egg mixture.
9. Stir together until smooth, then pour into an ungreased jelly roll pan (or rimmed baking sheet) and bake for 20 minutes.
10. While the cake is baking, make the icing: Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium-low heat. (I just wash out the same one I used for the cake. Makes me feel responsible and productive.)
11. Add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth.
12. Add the milk and vanilla.
13. And powdered sugar. Stir together.
14. Dump in the chopped pecans and stir until well combined.
15. Immediately after removing the cake from the oven, pour the warm icing over the top. You'll want to avoid doing much spreading, so try to distribute it evenly as you pour.

I made this cake last night for the first time, I had eaten it before of course, but it is so easy and quick to make. I had friends over (its so nice to be withing walking distance to most of your friends during an ice storm) for chili and decided last minute that we needed dessert and I had everything to make this. Try it today, you know you want to. And you might eat a piece for breakfast, I'm just saying, it might happen.

5 comments:

  1. You better save some of that for me! I shared mine after all.

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  2. oOoo I absolutely love Ree Drummond's cookbook! Ooh I need to make that this weekend seeing as how the snow and ice has us stuck - stuck - stuck on Lake Draper's South Shore!

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  3. I haven't made this yet... Is it THAT good?

    I made the potato skins today from the book.. SOO good!!

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  4. Suzanne, the sheet cake really is THAT good! and those potato skins are so delish, I was craving them the other day

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