Old Fashioned Chocolate Sheet Cake.

Last week, I was given a book called The Cake Mix Doctor Returns, it is a book full of recipes that start with a cake mix. Right away, i marked two square recipes I want to try.

A few days later, my mother asked me to make a cake for a BBQ we are having this weekend. Since I had three cake mixes on the shelf, I turned to this book to help doctor it up a bit. This recipe reminded me of a Texas sheet cake i tried at a pot-luck last year; i remember it was delicious, so I decided to give it a try. Here is a picture of the photograph in the book.

Old Fashioned Chocolate Sheet Cake.

Cake.

1 pkg plain chocolate cake mix (18.25 oz).

1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder.

1 + 1/3 cups milk or buttermilk.

1/2 cup oil.

3 large eggs.

1 Tbsp vanilla extract.

Place all ingredients in mixer. Beat 30 seconds to incorporate. Scrape sides of bowl and blend another 2 minutes, until mixture lightens and is smooth. Pour into prepared pan and bake at 350 F for 30 to 35 minutes, until toothpick inserted comes out clean. Let cool in pan while making frosting.

Frosting. (makes 4 cups, enough to cover 2 cakes).

12 Tbsp butter.

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder.

1/2 cup milk.

about 5 + 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted.

Melt butter in medium sized saucepan over medium heat. Stir in cocoa powder and milk. Cook stirring until mixture thickens and just begins to boil. Remove from heat, stir in 5 cups sugar, adding more as necessary, until it is the consistency of hot fudge sauce. 

Ladle warm frosting over top of cake, spreading to the edges. Frosting will harden as it cools. 

I had a hard time getting pictures to turn out today, they were all to bright or blurry. This is the best. The cake was easy enough to make, it took only a couple minutes with my mixer, and it baked up nicely in the time allotted. I gave it some sprinkles because Sunday is my sister's birthday, so i figured I'd fancy it up a bit. 

I ended up using Devil's Food, all i had was chocolate fudge, and there were no plain chocolate cake mixes in the store. Also, using the conversion table at the back of the book, i found my cake mix to be a bit small. it said 18.25 oz, my mix was 432g; and the conversion table says 450g is only 15oz. I still used the rest of the ingredients as listed and it turned out fine. 

The middle was a bit high, which caused the icing to pool on the edges a bit, but as it cooled i just scraped it into the centre with a rubber spatula. I halved the icing recipe as well. Four cups is a lot, and I only make cakes once or twice a year, so I had no use for the extra.

My icing turned out a bit lumpy, but my family does not care. So long as it is tasty, they will eat it no matter what it looks like! I can't tell you what the cake tastes like, but I can tell you the icing is really sweet, and delicious; and the batter is very tasty to! :-)

I am running the roads this weekend again, tomorrow is a trip to Saint Andrews, a tourist town a couple hours away. They are having their end of season sale for a lot of stores so we are going to try and get some deals. Sunday is a trip to my parent's house in Wirral for an end of summer BBQ. I can't wait! Today is the first day of Fall, and it is miserable here. Hopefully not setting up for what the rest of the season will be like!

Have a good weekend everyone! Welcome Fall!