Texas Sheet Cake Pinstrosity

Hello there peeps!

Happy day to you! We received a great email from Alison regarding "The BEST Texas Sheet Cake". 

The Original:

That there is a thing of sheet cake beauty.

No wonder Alison chose to try out this recipe! If you want to try it too (and you aren't deterred by Alison's pinstrosity) -- you can check the original posts out here or here. 

The Pinstrosity:

Maybe we will call this the Texas Shoot Cake? Because, shoot, that's not quite like photo in the original pin.

Here's what Alison had to say about the BEST Molten Lava Texas Sheet Cake:

"I only changed one thing from the original recipe. Because I didn't have a jelly roll pan, I poured the mixture into a 9x13 cake pan, making it more difficult for the sheet cake to bake all the way through. After 15 minutes, it was watery in the middle so I lowered the heat and baked it longer. After pouring the hot icing on it, below is what happened.... hopefully it will still taste good..."

I think I should start by saying that I think that Alison's use of another pan was completely reasonable in my book. Why do you ask? Because until five minutes before I started typing this, I had never heard of a jelly roll pan. But, do you know what's wonderful? The internet. 

I'll share my findings for those of you who didn't know what a jelly roll pan is either (don't worry, I'm not judging you). Thanks to What's Cooking America, we now know that a jelly roll pan is:

• A wide, flat pan similar to a cookie sheet or baking sheet with sides. The sides are 1-inch (2.54 cm) deep.

• The most all-purpose size to have is a 12½ x 17½ by 1 inch Jelly Roll Pan.

• These pans were intended for baking the sheet cake or sponge cake used in making jelly rolls. Jelly roll pans are handy for many other uses such as for roasting vegetables and baking cookies.

Given the dimensions dimensions of the most "all-purpose" size jelly roll pan, I can understand why Alison had to adjust the time and the temperature for baking of the cake. 

But, whoa, once Alison poured in the icing, this sheet cake evolved into a lava cake! I have no idea how to prevent a delicious chocolate swamp from forming in the middle of a sheet cake. I turn to you, Faithful Pinstrosity readers-- do you have any thoughts on this?

I have to tip my hat to Alison, because this is how she rated her pinstrosity: As for the "GCT Scale: I'd say maybe a 3: brown. I'm still gonna eat it :)"

Good for you Alison, ever the optimist. I definitely would have eaten it too! As a matter of fact, I'm a little sad that, as I type this, there is no heaping pile of sheet cake goodness waiting in my kitchen downstairs. 

Alison was nice enough to send us an update about how the cake tasted. Good news! She says "It was actually really good! And it seemed to be cooked all the way through, thank goodness. Though the frosting was seeped through in the middle... "

Still think this is a GCT Level 3? I'd say that with Alison's taste test, it has graduated to a Level 2. Tell us what you think!

Well, lovely readers, that's all for this post! I've missed you!
Cheers and keep being awesome,
Rachel