Baked Goods and Revenge: Texas Sheet Cake

Occasionally a cake comes along that makes you want to eat an entire 11x18 sheet pan of cake over two days. This is that cake. (Also for the record, I only ate half the pan over four days, and then took the rest to work on Monday before I became completely disgusted with myself.)

Texas Sheet Cake
(recipe courtesy of my mom, courtesy of a newspaper from about a zillion years ago)

Ingredients:
Cake:
½ pound Butter
1 cup Water
4 tablespoons Cocoa
2 Eggs
1/2 cup sour milk (add ½ teaspoon vinegar to sour milk)
1 teaspoon Vanilla
1 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 cups Flour
2 cups Sugar
½ teaspoon Salt

Icing:
¼ pound Butter
4 tablespoons Cocoa
6 tablespoons Milk
1 pound Confectioners’ Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 11-by-8-inch jelly roll pan. Bring butter, water
and cocoa to a boil in a small saucepan. In a small bowl, beat the eggs with sour milk,
vanilla and baking soda.

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar and salt. Add butter mixture and egg mixture to
flour, mixing gently. Pour into prepared pan. Bake 20 minutes or until cake tests done.
Spread icing on the hot cake when it comes out of the oven.

To make icing: Bring the butter, cocoa and milk to a boil in a small saucepan. In a
separate bowl, combine confectioners’ sugar, nuts and vanilla. Add butter mixture and
blend thoroughly.

It's straightforward. It's delicious. And it is shockingly non-dependent on ingredient quality. I was excited to make it with Ghiradelli cocoa, but honestly it didn't taste any different than when I've made it with generic. But it does still taste delicious. Everyone at work agreed.