Papa's version of the Chocolate Sheet Cake

There are upteen versions of this sheet cake on the web. It's a wonderful recipe -- if you like chocolate. This one, with a few tweaks and no nuts, is one Papa fixes for church fellowships -- a favorite for many years. Today he made seven of them -- you'll see in the photo -- for our Valentines Day banquet. Papa's choice of ingredients is shown in (parens).

Ingredients:

For the Cake

2 cups flour (Gold Medal all purpose)
2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter (Parkay stick margarine)
4 tablespoons cocoa (Hershey's)
1/2 cup oil (Crisco vegetable oil)
1 cup water
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon soda
2 eggs, lightly beaten

For Icing:

1/2 cup butter (again, Parkay stick margarine)
1 tablespoon cocoa (Hershey's)
6 tablespoons milk
1 box (1 lb) powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

If you're going to use nuts in the icing, use one cup -- we've used pecans in the past, but prefer without nuts.

Directions:

In a large bowl, sift flour and sugar.

In a saucepan, mix butter, cocoa, oil and water and bring to a rapid boil. Pour over the dry ingredients.

Stir in the remaining ingredients and mix thoroughly.

Pour into shallow buttered/floured sheet pan (11 x 16). Bake in 375 degree oven for fifteen minutes -- start testing at eight minutes. A toothpick or cake tester should come out almost clean.

Five minutes before the cake is done, make the icing. In a large saucepan mix butter, cocoa and milk, bringing them to a boil. Add remaining ingredients and mix well. Pour over the cake while it is still hot.