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.

Royally Obsessed (And a New Recipe)

All right, I admit it. I've been anticipating the Royal Wedding for at least a month now. I even downloaded the Royal Wedding App for my phone (it was free, I definitely wouldn't have paid for it). Mostly, I wanted to see what Kate's dress looked like - that's always my favorite part of a wedding - since it was "the secret" of the wedding. And it did not disappoint. I'll admit that it didn't look anything like what I thought it would but I thought it was gorgeous. But let's face it, she could have walked down the aisle in a potato sack and she would have looked gorgeous.

I'm fascinated with the Royal Family. I don't think it's out of any desire to be a princess or anything silly like that. After seeing just how much attention this got, especially over the last month, I can say for certain it is not a life I would want. But, nonetheless, it is really interesting to watch and read about. I recorded roughly 7 hours of Royal Wedding coverage and as of this moment have only been able to watch 2 1/2 hours of it. I'm hoping to be able to watch the rest of it but if we need room in the DVR queue...well, it'll have to go :(

So you can't help but notice how much those people love their Queen. And also how much those people love hats! Husband, being very fashion forward, commented on one rather large headdress saying "What's that bitch doing out in public with that on? If I was sitting next to her I'd say WTF are you wearing?? Get that thing out of my way." And I wonder how badly the TV people wanted to point out that you can't help but feel sorry for Kate's sister, Pippa. Mostly because her name is Pippa but also because no matter what she does - ever - she's never going to do anything at all that compares to this. But seriously, how cute are William & Kate? I can't wait to watch more of what I recorded.

So, in honor of the Royal Wedding, I decided to try a new recipe. Scones! Love scones. These are Brown Sugar-Pecan Scones and the recipe can be found HERE . I haven't had one yet, but I had a bite of Husband's and I thought it was so yummy! I plan to have one in the morning with my coffee...if I can wait that long.



There is a stick of cubed butter that is supposed to be there as well, but
it was in the fridge keeping cold and I forgot it for the picture. Oops.

There it is! Being added to the dry ingredients.

You're supposed to blend it together with a pastry blender. I don't
 have one. So I just use a fork and it seems to work well.

It's supposed to look like "small peas" but I don't think it does. But since
there were no more chunks of butter I called it "blended".

Adding the cream and toasted pecans to the party.

Mix until "just moistened". I always feel like I over-mix.

You pour it out onto a sheet of wax paper and pat into a 7 inch circle.

Cut into 8 wedges and place on a greased baking sheet. Brush tops with remaining
cream (and if you're like me then you'll add a sprinkle of sugar).

Bake until golden brown...YUM!

I do not trust cake or anything cake-like without some sort of frosting. So
I made up a quick cinnamon sugar glaze to go on top.

Yum! I can't wait to eat one.

Notes/Suggestions:

• I used 3/4 cup toasted pecans instead of a 1/2 cup. The 1/2 cup just didn't seem like enough.
• I had to use heavy whipping cream (instead of whipping cream) because it's what the store had. It seems to have worked just fine.
• I'm a big fan of glaze on things like this so I just made a simple powdered sugar glaze and added some cinnamon to it. LOVE cinnamon.
• Great for a brunch or "tea party"

Enjoy! (And sorry for the super long post.)

New Recipe: Praline Bundt Cake

So, one of my goals for 2011 is to try at least two new recipes each month. If I try more then Yay! but if not...hey, I've got a baby that needs attention. So I've already had the opportunity to try a new recipe! It's one I've had my eye on but, for some reason, just haven't made it yet. It's Praline Bundt Cake from the December 2007 issue of Southern Living. It's a very time-consuming cake but it looked so delicious I had to try it.

The garnish on the cake are sugared pecans. YUM! I have a recipe for these but in my attempt to follow the recipe exactly I made the ones in the recipe. They got a little burned. That's what I get for following directions!

Then I mixed up and baked the cake:



I was encouraged by the results! It wasn't burned.
Usually I burn anything in a bundt pan.

When it had finally cooled it was retardedly late so I went to bed. I do too much baking at night!



Nothing like some morning motivation to make some icing!

So, I got up early this morning to make the icing/glaze. Not too early...I slept past my alarm - again. My excuse will be that husband was snoring again and I couldn't go right to sleep last night. FYI: Breathe right strips only work for people who snore through their nose...they have yet to invent something for mouth-snorers.



Making the glaze...YUM!

And here is the finished product:

Which was evidently tasty:



Even I ate it...and I plan to eat more tomorrow. Most people who know me know that when I bake I usually don't want to eat it afterward. There was only one thing I baked that I really enjoyed eating...but there is another one the list! And there isn't even chocolate in this!

In case you didn't notice, I put the link to the recipe above which I will try to do any time I put up a post about a recipe attempt.

Notes/Suggestions:

• The pecans burned even though I followed the recipe. In the future, I will try to cook them at a lower temp (perhaps 325 instead of 350?) and probably stir them sooner than the recipe called for.
• The recipe said to bake the cake for 1 hour and 15 minutes but it only took an hour in my oven.
• With most cake recipes I have to double the icing/frosting/glaze. Not this one! There was plenty of icing with just one batch (and I even had to throw out a little bit).

This was a great new recipe. Totally worth the time and effort and I can't wait to make it again...or at the very least to enjoy some leftovers with my coffee tomorrow :)