Weekend Recipe: Texas Sheet Cake

This Texas Sheet Cake from Cook's Country is a huge, pecan-topped cake with three distinct layers of chocolaty goodness. We poured sweet chocolate icing over a cake hot out of the oven. When it cooled, we had an icing layer, a fudgy layer where the icing and hot cake had mixed together, and a bottom layer of moist cake. Most existing Texas Sheet Cake recipes called for a scant amount of cocoa powder, which makes for measly chocolate taste. We wanted our Texas Sheet Cake recipe to pack in even more chocolate flavor. Doubling the amount of cocoa helped, but melted semisweet chocolate gave our Texas Sheet Cake recipe strong chocolate flavor — and added moisture and fat to the batter, which made for a fudgier cake. Replacing milk with heavy cream gave the icing more body, while adding corn syrup produced frosting with a lustrous finish. The key to creating the signature fudgy layer between cake and icing was to let the warm icing soak into the hot cake. So we poured the icing as soon as the Texas Sheet Cake came out of the oven, using a spatula to spread it.

Texas Sheet Cake
Serves 24

Toast the pecans in a dry skillet over medium heat, shaking the pan occasionally, until golden and fragrant, about 5 minutes.

INGREDIENTS

Cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs plus 2 yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup sour cream
8 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder

Chocolate Icing:
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 cup toasted pecans, chopped

INSTRUCTIONS

1. For the cake: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 18- by 13-inch rimmed baking sheet. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl. Whisk eggs and yolks, vanilla, and sour cream in another bowl until smooth.

2. Heat chocolate, butter, oil, water, and cocoa in large saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until smooth, 3 to 5 minutes. Whisk chocolate mixture into flour mixture until incorporated. Whisk egg mixture into batter, then pour into prepared baking pan. Bake until toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 18 to 20 minutes. Transfer to wire rack.

3. For the icing: About 5 minutes before cake is done, heat butter, cream, cocoa, and corn syrup in large saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until smooth. Off heat, whisk in confectioners’ sugar and vanilla. Spread warm icing evenly over hot cake and sprinkle with pecans. Let cake cool to room temperature on wire rack, about 1 hour, then refrigerate until icing is set, about 1 hour longer. (Cake can be wrapped in plastic and refrigerated for up to 2 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.) Cut into 3-inch squares. Serve.

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