Texas Sheet Cake

For the Cake:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4 TBLS (heaping) cocoa
2 sticks butter
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup buttermilk  **
2 whole beaten eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp vanilla
*I also like adding 1 tsp cinnamon

For Frosting:
1/2 cups finely chopped pecans
1  3/4 stick butter
4 TBLS (heaping) cocoa
6 TBLS milk
1 tsp vanilla
1 pound (minus 1/2 cup) powdered sugar
   ( 1 pound = 3  3/4 cups unsifted powdered sugar)


Grease a jelly-roll pan (18x13).  Preheat oven to 350.

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt.
In a saucepan, melt butter.  Add cocoa and stir together.
Add boiling water, allow mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off heat.  Pour over flour mixture and stir lightly to cool.

In a measuring cup, pour the buttermilk and add beaten eggs, baking soda, (cinnamon) and vanilla.  Stir buttermilk mixture into chocolate mixture.  Pour into sheet cake pan and bake at 350 for 20 minutes.

While cake is baking, make the frosting.  Chop pecans finely.  Melt butter in saucepan.  Add cocoa, stirring to combine then turn off heat.  Add the milk, vanilla and powdered sugar.  Stir together.  Add pecans and pour evenly over warm cake.


**if you don't have butter milk, you can make your own by pouring 1 TBLS of lemon juice into a cup measurer.  Add milk to fill the rest of the 1 cup.  Let set for 3 minutes and then stir and use.