Texas Sheet Cake

[fifi]

Thanks for the laugh. The concept of me making a jelly roll is just too bizarre. But I might make the sheet cake. The fact that I have never heard of the thing after all of these years has me really curious. The concept of hot icing is particularly intriguing. I will probably go for the recipe in the big coffee table book. Actually, that book has some really serious recipes. Also, the copy I have belonged to my mom and dad and it has all of these check marks and notes and such.

[claire797]

   

Thanks for the laugh. The concept of me making a jelly roll is just too bizarre. But I might make the sheet cake. The fact that I have never heard of the thing after all of these years has me really curious. The concept of hot icing is particularly intriguing. I will probably go for the recipe in the big coffee table book. Actually, that book has some really serious recipes. Also, the copy I have belonged to my mom and dad and it has all of these check marks and notes and such.

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I am just astounded that you have never run across this cake. It's like the default picnic cake of all time. I don't think I've ever been to a family event without this cake . The best part is the poured icing.

I don't know if you have Rebecca Rather's book, The Pastry Queen, but she has a similar recipe which she's transformed into a mini cakes. She makes a rich Mexican chocolate cake, bakes it in jumbo muffin pans, then pours the sweet fudge pecan frosting all over the sides.

Anyway. I've been obsessed with Texas Sheet Cake/Mexican Chocolate Cake for about a month now and still haven't made it. I was very happy to see this thread and am glad I can bake it vicariously through you.

[fifi]

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I am just astounded that you have never run across this cake.  It's like the default picnic cake of all time.  I don't think I've ever been to a family event without this cake  .  The best part is the poured icing.

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I am, too. And, I am actually delighted. I love it when I run into some new factoid and have to hit myself on the forehead and proclaim "Why don't I know that?" My concept of hell is arriving in the great hereafter and suddenly knowing the answer to everything.

[claire797]

My concept of hell is arriving in the great hereafter and suddenly knowing the answer to everything.

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Is it hot in here or is it just me?

[joiei]

My grandma used to make this when they had a dairy down in Coleman. Good memories. Now I will have to make it for my brothers birthday coming up and surprise him. And a jelly roll is not that hard. Maybe i will make both, and fill the jelly roll with ice cream. Oh my.

[Lone Star]

fifi - I have found that the "Baker's Joy" spray with flour and oil works very well. The new Pam sounds similar.

[claire797]

fifi - I have found that the "Baker's Joy" spray with flour and oil works very well.  The new Pam sounds similar.

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Lone Star, have you tried the new Pam for Baking? I started using it last year and love it. It smells great, unlike a lot of the other baking sprays. I think they put some vanilla in it. It also works spectacularly well.

[Priscilla]

OK, I have made the cake twice. It's it, the one, all right. Excellent!

Half batches each time, baked in a pan that is about 11" x 7". Used Dutch-process cocoa. Frosting cocoa, butter, milk brought to a boil, powdered sugar stirred in, poured on cake.

Completed inside half an hour.

People I served it to over the weekend loved loved loved it, but were of two minds as to its appeal: Some of 'em said oh it's so rich, like a brownie, others said oh it's so light! I'm more in the it's-so-light camp, the even sponginess being an identifying charactertistic of this cake, for me.

What a good cake! Best frosting ever, too.

[RebeccaT]

RebeccaT, could you post your recipe for the pourable frosting?

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Yes! Please post it in RecipeGullet and link it here.

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Texas Sheet Cake

Oh, gosh, I hope I did it right! I went ahead and posted the entire recipe (with edited directions, in an attempt to appease the RecipeGullet gods). Please let me know if I did it incorrectly; it was my first RG entry!

[joiei]

THis recipe looks like the same one in my cooking school mailer from Central Market in Fort Worth. I am looking at the class by Chef Mesnier, the former pastry chef of the White house.

[Lone Star]

Hurray for the Cake!

Claire - I haven't tried it yet, but you are right - that Baker's Joy did have a kind of peculiar scent. It never affected the taste of the food though.

Writing out list to buy new Pam spray......

[fifi]

RebeccaT . . . the RecipeGullet entry looks just fine. Many thanks. I do find it kind of amusing to find it based on a Cooking Light recipe.

I do have a question since I am a newby to this esteemed recipe. Do you have to have pecans in the icing? I really don't like nuts in sweet stuff very much. I mean, they are ok, but I would rather not have them intrude. Would I be committing heresy if I left out the pecans?

[Paris M]

Rebecca thank you for the recipe! I plan to use that recipe for Mother's Day dessert.

Linda I've read several posts by folks at another BB who've used that recipe, and several of them have left the pecans out. I also plan to omit them.

[Priscilla]

I didn't use pecans, in deference to my 13-year-old chocolate cake consumer, who prefers no nuts interrupting his enjoyment of baked goods. (Not against nuts categorically.)

[achevres]

I went to school in houston (1978-82) and had many a Texas sheet cake baked by friend's mother's. They looked a just like the one in the Houston Chronicle photo, always served right from the pan and with pecans. I always thought they were pleasant, but not chocolatey enough. They had more of a milk chocolate taste. I never turned one down, however!

[ruthcooks]

I couldn't stand it, had to post the full fat version here.

This one has no cinnamon, no nuts, and more butter and more cocoa--plain ole Hershey's. In my experience, Dutch process cocoa has more in common with carob than chocolate, it never tastes as chocolate-y to me.

I've been making this cake since the mid-70s, and it's always faster and better tasting than I remember. Very rich and better than brownies to me.

[Dana]

My Grandma, in a valiant effort to please every grandchild, sprinkled nuts on half, while leaving the other half plain. She was the best.

I don't think it would be quite the same without the cinnamon.

[fifi]

You guys are the best for entering the recipes. I am trying to locate my mixer. I will be making one version or the other. Hmmmm . . . low fat, full fat? That's easy. No pecans. Add cinnamon. Putting pecans on half is something my great aunt Minnie would have done. I am still puzzled that she never made this cake that I remember.

[claire797]

Fifi, the CL one is very good, but I think you should make the regular version first and get an idea what a fully-loaded Texas Sheet Cake tastes like before altering the recipe.

Ruth, thanks for putting the original in there. I think I'll go take a look at both recipes side by side just to compare.

[fifi]

Oh . . . I thought you all knew . . . I don't do low fat.

[claire797]

Oh . . . I thought you all knew . . . I don't do low fat.     

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LOL. Well, in copy cat mode, I bought all the ingredients to make it with you. Maybe Emma and I will make it after her nap. I'm also going to try making a clone recipe for Dairy Queen ice cream. It's a recipe I've been meaning to try for three or four years. I figure it will go along nicely with the Texas Sheet Cake, even though the real accompaniment should be Blue Bell.

BTW. For the cake, I'm going to make the one Ruth posted....verbatum....no changes...

[lovebenton0]

i've made this quite a few times, with and without pecans, but i always sub strong coffee for water, add more cocoa than that. absolutely has to have the cinnamon.

i usually use my 9x13 pyrex also. last time i made it in my stoneware bundt pan. it was for Easter and two bros bdays also, so just wanted it to look a bit fancier, poured on the icing while warm. no pecans because of one bro's nut allergies.

younger bro did homemade choc ice cream also... we decided to wait to have that a bit later. we were still in orbit!

so it's not strictly the traditional i suppose especially with the bundt but it was a lovely and luscious cake anyway.

[claire797]

First off, Judith, your cake looks incredible. It's definitely flashier than mine.

I wanted to go ahead and do an actual sheet cake before getting all high-falutin' ;). And I'm done. I threw together the cake Ruth posted in about 30 minutes.

It looks just as I remember.

A little cinnamon would definitely give it a Mexican spin, but it’s good without it too. How do I know, you ask? Well, note the non-smoothness of the bottom left hand corner of the “iced” picture. I cut away some of the cake to taste it thinking the icing would cover it up. It looks okay, I guess.

I can tell the icing is going to take a long time to firm up. I used maybe 3/4 a box of sugar, but I was heavy handed with the milk. With all that butter, it’s bound to get stiff eventually.

Oh, and I didn’t sift the powdered sugar. The last time I saw a family member making this cake, she was madly sifting powdered sugar into the saucepan with the chocolate. I just poured the sugar into a big bowl, poured the boiling chocolate mixture into the big bowl with the sugar, then beat it like heck with the electric mixer.

I did sift the flour in the cake part, though. It paid off because the crumb is fine, but moist and tender.

One more thing. I really didn’t want to make changes to the recipe, but I decided to use salted butter in the icing only. The icing recipe has no salt, so I figured a tiny bit of salt would bring out the other flavors.

[claire797]

I should not have lined my pan with parchment. The cake is so moist that it soaks through the parchment, making the parchment into a nuisance rather than a helpful thing. This cake is so you could probably get away with making it in a plain ungreased pan.

This cake doesn't have as much chocolate as most chocolate cakes, but it has that distinct Texas sheetcake taste I remember from childhood.

[fifi]

Thanks for the pictures everyone. Now if I can find my mixer I will be set to go.