Texas chocolate cake

It's Boley Boy Birthday Bash again!

What that means here is CHOCOLATE cake.  I love these kiddos so much that I always try to find a new recipe to make up for them.  This time I decided to try out Ree Drummonds Best Texas sheet cake, but instead of doing her basic pantry staple ingredients, I tweaked a little.

Ingredients assemble!

2 cups flour

2 cups sugar (I used vanilla-infused sugar(

2 sticks of butter (Irish and salted - I know that isn't what is in the pictures, but I already had it melting in the pan so I had to use a stand in, besides, I wanted these wrappers)

1 cup boiling water

1/2 cup buttermilk (I use heavy cream/whole milk and buttermilk powder mix)

4 heaping tablespoons of dark cocoa powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla paste (I used a tablespoon of homemade vanilla bean paste -- check out that blog, too)

You need to find the pan that you want to bake in.  This is an ideal recipe for a sheet cake, I preferred this square 9" pan.  Be sure to prep it.  I used vegetable oil, two wax butter wrappers on the bottom, and then I "cocoa" it since it's a chocolate cake.

Here's that vanilla-bean infused sugar.....  just a little boost.

Get that water boiling in a pan.  It's going to make your cocoa EXPLODE!

In a separate pan, melt your butter.  Be careful not to burn it!  Deadpool is a great help at watching the butter.

I go a little overboard on my cocoa.  I get black cocoa like this.  You can use regular cocoa.  I won't judge.

When the butter is all melty and heavenly, plop in that amazing cocoa and stir.  Let it boil for two minutes, then add the boiling water, stir well, and bring it back to a boil for another 30 seconds.  This really pulls all the flavor into the front of the room.

Pour that ooey, gooey, hot chocolate over your dry ingredients and stir so that the hot liquid cools before you add the eggs.

Combine vanilla, buttermilk (or milk if you used buttermilk powder in the dry ingredients), and beaten eggs into the slightly cooled mixture, and mix until everything is combined.

Pour into your well-prepared pan.  Be careful to ONLY mix until combined.  You don't want to overmix.

Pop into a 350 degree oven for 20 minutes on a sheetcake, or 35 minutes for this deep pan.  Cake is done when it no longer jiggle and has a slight give but pops up when touched, or test with a toothpick.

Here you go!  Texas Chocolate Cake!  It's going to be sinful.