An occasion for cake.

Sometimes I just get the urge to bake something.  Danny used to argue with me, but he's learned now.  Now he just rolls his eyes and tells me to clean the kitchen when I'm done.  I'll drag out my cookbooks and rifle through the pantry to see what I can make.  Most of the time it ends up being some type of cookie, because usually I only have the staples:  flour, sugar, butter, eggs.  It's not so much that I want to bake something so I can eat it, I just love the baking process.  And usually I don't get to eat much of the finished product.  With Danny and the girls (and mostly Danny) I'm lucky to get two or three cookies out of two dozen.

Anyway, my point is that I like to randomly bake without any special occasion.  So I came across a cake recipe a while back that I've really been wanting to try but I had no reason to bake a cake, especially one that makes this much.  Then I decided I didn't need a reason.  If I can bake cookies at random, why can't I bake a cake?  Do I need a holiday?  Tuesday, December 1, 2009 was enough of an occasion for me!

I came across this recipe on Bakerella's blog, but she originally got it from the Pioneer Woman (who is awesome; I could spend all day on her blog!).  Here's the recipe for The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever. 

We combine the dry ingredients first.

And melt two sticks of butter on the stove. 

Add water and cocoa to the melted butter.  This part starts to smell soooo good!

Add the chocolate/butter mixture to the dry ingredients and stir.

Mix your buttermilk, eggs, vanilla and baking soda in a measuring cup.

Then add your buttermilk mixture to the rest of the stuff in the bowl and mix it well.  Did I mention that you don't even have to get out the electric mixer for this cake?  That makes it even more awesome.

Pour the batter into the pans.  It's actually supposed to be made in a commercial size cookie sheet, or a jelly roll pan, (i.e. something larger than what I have) but I only had regular-sized cookie sheets so I just made two!

Into the oven they go!  I only left mine in about 15 minutes because my oven cooks fast.  Now for the frosting.

Melt more butter on the stove.  This time 1 3/4 sticks.

Then add more cocoa, and powdered sugar.  The original recipe calls for chopped pecans, but I don't like pecans so I left those out.

The finished cakes!  I think my frosting was a little too thin, but it still tasted awesome! 

Yum!  Seriously, make this cake.  It really is the best cake.  Ally ate two pieces last night.  Danny ate five.  That should say something, right?