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Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake
Authentic Texas sheet cake recipe is full of dense, rich chocolate flavor. The frosting is fudgy and full of buttery pecans. This vintage recipe is the best!
Course
Dessert
Cuisine
American - Southern
Prep Time
5
minutes
minutes
Cook Time
20
minutes
minutes
Total Time
25
minutes
minutes
Servings
36
Calories
222
kcal
Author
Marye Audet-White
Equipment
Stand mixer
rubber spatula
Ingredients
Cake
2
cups
all-purpose flour
2
cups
sugar
1
teaspoon
baking soda
¼
teaspoon
salt
1
cup
butter
1
cup
water
⅓
cup
dark cocoa powder
I prefer Hershey's Special Dark Cocoa for this)
2
eggs
½
cup
buttermilk
1
teaspoon
vanilla
Texas Sheet Cake Frosting
⅓
cup
buttermilk
⅓
cup
dark cocoa powder
Hersey's Special Dark is the preference
½
cup
butter
browned until golden
3 ¾
cups
confectioner's sugar
sifted to remove lumps
1
teaspoon
vanilla
1 ½
cups
pecans
toasted and chopped
Instructions
Cake
Preheat oven to 350F.
Grease a jelly roll pan and set aside.
Melt the butter until it is a golden brown in a heavy pan. Do not let it burn.
Add the water and the cocoa and stir until smooth.
Bring to a
boil
, stirring.
Remove from heat.
Mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.
Beat
in eggs, vanilla, and buttermilk.
Stir in cocoa mixture and stir until smooth.
Spoon into jellyroll pan, smoothing out evenly.
Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.
Remove from oven.
Texas Sheet Cake Frosting
About 5 minutes before the cake is ready to come out of the oven melt the butter in saucepan until golden brown.
Add the milk and the cocoa.
Bring the mixture to a
boil
, stirring smooth.
Remove from heat and add the Confectioner's sugar, pecans and vanilla.
Mix quickly and spoon over the warm cake.
Cut in squares to serve.
Notes
There are some don'ts to this cake:
Don't use anything but pecans. No, walnuts will not substitute. Macadamias either. Don't even think about hazelnuts or Brazil nuts.
Don't use a 13x9 inch pan...the texture will be wrong.
Don't experiment with flavor. Sometimes things should just be left alone. This is one of those things.
Don't cool the cake. Be sure the cake is still quite warm when you put the frosting on.
Don't drink sweet tea within three hours of eating this cake. The sugar jolt will have you zipping around like the Roadrunner.
Beep Beep
.
And here are some things you gotta do. Like my husband,
the Aggie
, says, "It's just tradition, that's why."
Have cold milk or hot coffee at the ready.
Share with someone. This cake is friendly. Take some to a neighbor or a co-worker.
Basically you can make this Texas Sheet Cake recipe with a couple of Lone-Star-Approved variations:
Add chopped Heath bars to the frosting
Substitute hot coffee for the water in the recipe
Subsitute Dr. Pepper for the water in the recipe.
Add a teaspoon of cinnamon and/or chipotle to the cake batter
Nutrition
Calories:
222
kcal
|
Carbohydrates:
31
g
|
Protein:
2
g
|
Fat:
11
g
|
Saturated Fat:
5
g
|
Cholesterol:
21
mg
|
Sodium:
124
mg
|
Potassium:
60
mg
|
Fiber:
1
g
|
Sugar:
24
g
|
Vitamin A:
248
IU
|
Vitamin C:
1
mg
|
Calcium:
15
mg
|
Iron:
1
mg