World's Best Chocolate Sheet Cake

If your from Texas, there's no doubt you're familiar with sheet cake. You grew up getting to partake of it after church for potluck. You looked forward to it in Summer on picnics. Heck, your grandma probably had a recipe for it. Food historians aren't quite sure where the original recipe came from, or how it originated. But none the less, our hats go off to whomever was responsible for this brilliance.

This chocolate sheet cake will soon be your only "go-to" recipe. It's ultra moist, and packed with chocolaty goodness. The icing when cooled has a slight crispness to it. And if you serve it warm, I promise you your taste buds will dance.

So let's dive right in!

Cake:

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
4 heaping Tablespoons cocoa
2 sticks butter
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 large eggs, beaten
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Icing:

1 3/4 stick butter
4 heaping Tablespoons cocoa
6 Tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 1/4 cups powdered sugar
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans

*Here's a kitchen tip of mine to ensure you won't have any lumps in your icing.
Sifting powdered sugar the easy way

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350-degrees.

In a mixing bowl combine the flour, sugar and salt.

In a medium sized saucepan melt the butter. Add cocoa, stir together.

Add boiling water and allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds. Then turn off the heat, and pour over the flour mixture and stir lightly.

Add the buttermilk, beaten eggs, baking soda and vanilla. Stir the buttermilk mixture into the butter/chocolate mixture.

Pour into a greased 18x13" sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.

While the cake is baking, make the icing.

In a medium sized sauce pan melt the butter. Add the cocoa and stir until combined, then turn off the heat.

Remove the cake from the oven. While the cake "rests", add the milk, vanilla and powdered sugar to the cocoa/butter mixture. Stir well and pour over the warm cake.

Next, sprinkle chopped pecans over the icing.

Serve warm.

Enjoy!

*On a side note: During Christmas time, you could add crushed peppermint to the icing, and substitute peppermint extract in place of vanilla extract to give this cake a holiday flare.