Texas Sheet Cake

i'm not a fan of chocolate cake. i'm not a fan of frosted cakes, period. i can eat them, sometimes, but i prefer pound cakes or crumb cakes. i'm not the biggest fan of chocolate desserts, either, unless they're really chocolately. if you're gonna do chocolate, go all the way. i'm crazy about brownies, though. dense, chewy, fudgey (never cakey!) brownies. and i like good fudge, too. but chocolate cake? not so much. what you see above you, though, is not chocolate cake; it's texas sheet cake. why is this so much better? because it's dense and fudgey--think of it as a fudgey cake. but there's something special that makes this cake dense & fudgey: you refrigerate it. you may think it dries the cake out, but it doesn't. maybe i'm in the minority, but really only like this cake after it's been refrigerated. when it's fresh out of the oven, it's merely chocolate cake. the recipe posted here by the homesick texan is almost the same as the one i use. the differences: 1) i left out the ancho chile powder; 2) i left out the pecans; 3) i baked at 350° for 25 minutes rather than 400°. i also recommend adding the eggs to the cake batter after mixing in the buttermilk to ensure that the hot batter doesn't cook them. enjoy!