King Arthur Flour's Favorite Fudge Cake

By sandycon

This old-fashioned chocolate sheet cake is incredibly moist, and can be stirred together by hand if need be. The fudge frosting is also stir-together simple, and creates a lovely thick layer on top. You can line the pan with parchment or foil before baking, grease it, and lift the cake out of the pan once it's cool before frosting. This makes cutting the cake easier to do, and individual portions nestle nicely into muffin papers. It's sure to be a hit at your next potluck. We've taken one of our commenters suggestions and doubled the cocoa in the recipe to 1/2 cup. Now it's an intensely chocolately cake.

Ingredients

• Cake
• 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) butter or margarine
• 1/2 cup (1 1/2 ounces) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa
• 1 cup (8 ounces) hot water
• 2 cups (8 1/2 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 2 cups (14 ounces) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) buttermilk or yogurt
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Quick Fudge Frosting
• 1/2 cup (1 stick, 4 ounces) unsalted butter
• 1/4 cup (3/4 ounce) unsweetened cocoa
• 6 tablespoons (3 ounces) buttermilk or yogurt
• 4 cups (1 pound) confectioners' sugar

Details

Servings 12
Adapted from kingarthurflour.com

Preparation

Step 1

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 9" x 13" cake pan.

Melt the butter or margarine; stir in the cocoa and hot water. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, sugar, soda and salt. Pour the cocoa mixture over the dry ingredients, stirring to blend. Beat in the buttermilk or yogurt, eggs and vanilla.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan. Bake the cake for 30 minutes, or until it tests done. (You'll smell the chocolate aroma, and the cake will begin to pull away from the edge of the pan). Remove from the oven and cool on a rack.

Melt the butter in a medium-sized saucepan. Stir in the cocoa and buttermilk or yogurt. Bring the mixture to a boil, then remove from the heat and mix in the confectioners' sugar, beating until smooth. Pour over the cake while the frosting is still warm. Serve cake right from the pan.

A great easy cake to make for a crowd. I usually bake it in a jelly roll pan for a higher ratio of frosting to cake. The frosting takes it over the top! I have added nuts from time to time with the topping, or even Kahlua for part of the liquid. It is very versatile.

This is a totally delicious pan cake. I bring it to most events. In the Description, I do not utilize parchment paper, as Baker's Joy spray works great as I flip it out onto a cake board.

Cake: I bring to boil the butter, water & cocoa + I add 1/2 cup oil. I mix 1 cup buttermilk with the 1 tsp of soda in a 2-cup measuring as this will rise prior to adding it to the sugar/flour. I deleted the salt.

Frosting: I add 1 cup of chopped walnuts. It totally made this get a higher step up in taste.

Really easy to make ... enjoy.