I have been intrigued for a while now by a recipe that has been touted on numerous blogs as, “the best vanilla frosting I’ve ever had!” The recipe looked a little odd because it contained flour that has to be cooked. I’ve never heard of flour in a frosting recipe, but yesterday I decided to give it a try. I wasn’t disappointed. My husband actually said that this is the best vanilla frosting that I have ever made, and I have made a lot of it because I LOVE frosting. I thought the frosting was interesting at first – it reminded me a bit of whipped cream, but I have to admit that it then grew on me. The boys really liked it, one of them liked it even more the second day.

I found the frosting recipe, along with the chocolate sheet cake recipe over at Ree Drummond’s blog called The Pioneer Woman Cooks. She advertised the chocolate cake as the best chocolate sheet cake ever. How could I not try it? I do love a chocolate sheet cake like this because frosting is my favorite part of a cake/cupcake and in my mind this cake to frosting ratio is perfect.  I’ll make both of these recipes again.

Chocolate Sheet Cake (aka The Best Chocolate Sheet Cake. Ever.)
Recipe from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
4 Tablespoons (heaping) cocoa
2 sticks butter
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 whole beaten eggs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla

Take out a half sheet pan (looks like a big, rimmed cookie sheet, approximately 18″ x 13″).

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, and salt.

In a saucepan, melt butter. Add cocoa. 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, and vanilla. Stir buttermilk mixture into butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into ungreased sheet cake pan and bake at 350-degrees for 20 minutes.

Yield:  1 sheet cake

 

Vanilla Frosting (aka That’s the Best Frosting I’ve Ever Had)
Recipe from Tasty Kitchen, courtesy of Ree Drummond

5 Tablespoons flour
1 cup milk (I used whole milk)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup butter
1 cup granulated sugar

In a small saucepan, whisk flour into milk and heat, stirring constantly, until it thickens. You want it to be very thick, thicker than cake mix, more like a brownie mix is. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature. (To speed this up, you can place the saucepan into some ice water so the mixture cools. Don’t let the water get into the frosting!) It must be completely cool before you use it in the next step. Stir in vanilla.

While the mixture is cooling, cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, at least 5 minutes. You don’t want any sugar graininess left. Then add the completely cooled milk/flour/vanilla mixture and beat the living daylights out of it. If it looks separated, you haven’t beaten it enough! Beat it until it all combines and resembles whipped cream.  You can now frost your cake.

Yield:  enough frosting for one sheet cake

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