'The Pioneer Woman' Ree Drummond's Chocolate Sheet Cake Recipe - Showbiz Cheat Sheet

The Pioneer Woman star Ree Drummond posted a sheet cake recipe that she told her readers is the best one they’ll ever eat. Drummond posted the recipe for her chocolate sheet cake on The Pioneer Woman blog, and we’re convinced she’s right. “This cake. It is absolutely, without a doubt, The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. It’s moist beyond imagination, chocolatey and rich like no tomorrow, and 100% of the time, causes moans and groans from anyone who takes a bite. God bless my mother-in-law, who shared the recipe with me when I became engaged to her son,” wrote Drummond. Here is Ree Drummond’s chocolate sheet cake recipe.

Ree Drummond and Robin Roberts | Fred Lee/Walt Disney Television via Getty Images

Ingredients

2 sticks regular butter
1 cup water
8 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ cup pecans
1 ¾ sticks regular butter
1 lb. powdered sugar

Directions

1. Melt 2 sticks regular (not unsalted) butter in a saucepan. While it’s melting, boil 1 cup of water.

2. When the butter is melted, add 4 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder and mix thoroughly.

3. With the heat still on, pour in the boiling water and allow the mixture to bubble for 30 seconds.

4. Turn off heat. Set aside.

5. In a large mixing bowl, combine 2 cups flour, 2 cups sugar and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Stir together.

6. Pour the hot butter/chocolate mixture over the top and stir together slightly, just to cool the chocolate.

7. In a measuring cup, pour ½ cup buttermilk.

Ree Drummond’s back-up plan: Living way out in the country, I often find myself missing key ingredients for many recipes and have had to learn to improvise. I usually don’t have buttermilk in the fridge when I want to make this cake, so here’s what I do: pour just under 1/2 cup regular milk into the measuring cup, then add enough regular vinegar to the milk to bring the quantity up to 1/2 cup. Within seconds, it turns into buttermilk and works perfectly. Try it sometime!

8. To the buttermilk, add 2 beaten eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla, and 1 teaspoon baking soda. Stir together.

9. Add the buttermilk mixture to the chocolate/flour mixture. Stir together well.

10. Pour batter into ungreased pan and spread evenly.

11. Bake cake at 350° F for 20 minutes. While the cake is baking, make the frosting.

12. Chop ½ cup pecans into small pieces; the smaller, the better.

13. In a saucepan melt 1 ¾ sticks of regular butter.

14. Once the butter is melted, add 4 heaping tablespoons cocoa powder. Stir together and allow to bubble for 30 seconds. Turn off heat.

15. Add 6 tablespoons milk and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Stir together.

16. Add 1 lb. powdered sugar. Drummond likes to add about 1/2 cup less than 1 lb. “I was too embarrassed to admit that I wouldn’t be able to tell you what quantity that is. So, add a pound, but hold a little back, and please don’t ask me how much that is, because I hate math,” joked Drummond in her instructions on the Pioneer Woman blog.

17. Stir together. Add the chopped pecans and stir together again.

A note from Ree Drummond: “If you’re like my sister Betsy and your throat closes up and your head swells to three times its size if you ingest even a tiny speck of a tree nut, you can certainly leave out the pecans. Just be sure to stir the icing well enough to get rid of the tiny clumps of powdered sugar, because you won’t have the nuts to break them up. And yes, you can sift the powdered sugar beforehand, but I usually can’t ever be bothered with such nonsense,” wrote Drummond.

18. Pour frosting over cake.

Source: Ree Drummond

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