New Recipe: PW's The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever.

This is my first Pioneer Woman recipe! I have to say, I'm little jazzed about that. I always see her recipes and think "It would take me all day to make that AND it would probably taste like poop". I stumbled across this post from her blog on Friday while searching for a dessert recipe for our Father's Day cookout on Saturday. I wanted something kind of simple since we were just having burgers and grilled chicken but I also wanted it to be super yummy. 

And it was yummy! Also much easier than I had worked it up in my head to be. I managed to knock out the cake in an hour or less while a crazy toddler was running through my kitchen. And no one was harmed in the process. I think I can call that a success.

I'm going to post a link to Pioneer Woman's post. She took step-by-step pictures and I didn't have time. Also, she has the printable version of her recipe.

My little helper. He wanted very badly to get at my
mixing bowl...so he had to have one of his own. Later
on, some Goldfish crackers found their way in
there and he really enjoyed that :)

The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever.

For the cake:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons (heaping) cocoa
• 2 sticks butter
• 1 cup boiling water
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 whole beaten eggs
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

For the frosting:

• 1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
• 1 3/4 sticks butter
• 4 tablespoons (heaping) cocoa
• 6 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 pound (minus 1/2 cup) powdered sugar

Directions:

• In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.
• In a sauce pan, melt butter. Add cocoa. Stir together.
• Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds then turn off heat. Pour over flour mixture and stir lightly to cool
• In a measuring cup, pour the buttermilk and add beaten eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into ungreased sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.
• While cake is baking, make the icing. Chop pecans finely. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add cocoa, stir to combine, then turn off heat. Add the milk, vanilla, and powdered sugar. Stir together. Add the pecans, stir together, and pour over warm cake.
• Cut into squares, eat, and totally wig out over the fact that you've just made the best chocolate sheet cake. Ever.

Recipe Source: The Pioneer Woman Cooks! (Seriously, check out her recipes. Yum!)

You wanna bite right now, don't you?

Notes/Suggestions:

• She said she used a 18"x13"x1" jelly roll/sheet cake pan. I used a 17"x12"x1" pan. I wouldn't use anything smaller than that.
• If you check out her post, she said to use an ungreased pan. So I didn't grease it (even though I usually do it anyway). No sticking! I wonder if it has anything to do with the almost whole pound of butter in the recipe?
• I upped the pecans to one cup. We're a pecan-lovin' bunch.
• I don't know that I can say it was best chocolate cake ever, but it was pretty damn good. And easy to be from scratch.
• I ate a piece while working on this post and it's still pretty damn good :)

Now that I've gotten over my initial fear of Pioneer Woman's recipes, I'm dying to try more! I'll definitely be sharing if I do.