Sugarless Chocolate Sheet Cake

This is how the cake should have turned out. (Photo from the NY Times.)

This is not exactly what I had in mind when I decided to "eat less sugar" this year.  I had been wanting to try the recipe for the Denver Chocolate Sheet Cake that had appeared in the NYTimes and my friend Boguska was here helping me.  I was mixing dry ingredients while she was preparing the cocoa and butter mix.  Shortly after we put the cake in the oven, I realized that I forgot to add the sugar to the dry ingredients. 


The cake didn't rise very much (was that because of the lack of sugar???) but it tasted like a chocolate biscuit.  I knew that the chocolate icing was going to be very sweet because it calls for a pound of confectioners' sugar.  Boguska suggested that I cut the cake in half and make a two layer cake out of it with a layer of the icing in the middle as well as on top.  That should make it sweet enough. 


I should have realized that there was a rather small amount of batter. 

Batter for cake part.



Into the oven.

Cut in half.

Today I made the icing.

Melting the butter, buttermilk and cocoa.

I usually add a bit of espresso whenever I'm making chocolate icing.



Melted cocoa and butter poured into bowl of mixer.



1 pound of confectioners' sugar.  That's a lot of sugar.

Adding the sugar.



Adding the chopped walnuts.

Icing the first layer. 

 

Here's the recipe:

DENVER CHOCOLATE SHEET CAKE

2 1/3 c. flour 2 c. sugar 1 tsp. baking soda 1 c. butter 1 1/4 c. water 4 tbsp. cocoa 1/2 c. buttermilk 2 eggs, beaten 1 tsp. vanilla extract FROSTING: 1/2 c. butter 4 tbsp. cocoa 6 tbsp. buttermilk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 1 lb. powdered sugar 1/2 c. chopped walnuts or pecans FOR CAKE: Mix flour, sugar and soda in bowl. Bring butter, water and cocoa to a boil in saucepan. Pour over dry ingredients. Mix thoroughly. Add buttermilk, eggs and vanilla. Beat well. Pour into greased 9"x13" pan and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until done.FOR FROSTING: To make frosting, heat butter, cocoa and buttermilk to boiling. Remove from heat and mix in vanilla, sugar and nuts.NOTE: A delicious, moist chocolate cake. The frosting will be runny but hardens as it cools. Cake freezes well. Finished cake.  The cake part is a bit dense but it is certainly sweet enough with all that icing.