You know how sometimes you have a recipe that you’ve wanted to make for a very, very long time… a recipe you’ve seen a million other places but you’ve never tried it yourself? A simple Chocolate Sheet Cake is one of those recipes for me. Are sheet cakes a Southern thing? I’m wondering if that’s why they haven’t been on my radar. I finally made my first sheet cake, and I’m totally and completely happy that I did. What a winner this cake is! It’s very chocolatey and moist and rich. It’s everything I hoped it would be. There are plenty of recipes on the internet for Chocolate Sheet Cake, otherwise known as “Texas Sheet Cake.” I decided to go with the trustiest source I know for this sort of thing: Ree Drummond’s The Pioneer Woman Cooks Cookbook. I was tasked with feeding a large crowd at a family BBQ last weekend, and I know that Ree feeds large crowds on a daily basis. No brainer. This is Ree’s recipe.
You need the right kind of pan for this if you truly want to make it a sheet cake. You’ll need a 12×18-inch rimmed baking sheet. If you don’t have one, go ahead and pick one up (they’re great for baking cookies too). But Ree does mention that you can use this recipe to make cupcakes too.
The cake is big, but it’s thin. So you get a perfectly rich and chocolatey slice that is not overwhelmingly too much. The sprinkles, of course, are optional. Ree’s recipe calls for chopped pecans on top, but we’re more of a rainbow sprinkles kind of family than a nut family so we usually go with those. An easy-to-make warm icing is poured over the just-out-of-the-oven cake. When it has cooled, the frosting turns itself into a fudgy top layer to the cake. See that thick layer of frosting?? Yeah, it’s really very good. To give you an idea of how good the cake is… my sister Susie doesn’t even like chocolate cake (and neither do I!), but we both LOVE IT. And everyone else always loves this cake too. Thank you, Ms. Pioneer Woman. Your chocolate sheet cake recipe really and truly rocks!
Bake this Chocolate Sheet Cake recipe for a special celebration or just because you want to feed some friends a sweet treat! It feeds a lot of people (24 servings), so it’s a nice one to be able to share with others.
Here area a few more sheet cake recipes you might be interested in trying:
White Texas Sheet Cake Red Velvet Sheet Cake Cookies ‘n Cream Sheet Cake Blueberry- Zucchini Sheet Cake Banana- Chocolate Chip Sheet Cake with Maple Icing Peppermint Texas Sheet Cake Toasted Coconut- Carrot Sheet Cake Pumpkin Sheet Cake
