PW's Best Ever Chocolate Sheet Cake

Any recipe that incorporates an entire pound of butter into a pan of cake has to be good. OK, I lied. This uses 3 and 3/4 sticks of butter, so it's technically a mere 14 ounces of butter, but booooooooy golly is it good. It's buttery chocolately heaven, and because it's so thin, you can eat a good size slab of it and not feel too guilty. If you haven't discovered the Pioneer Woman's website yet, now's your chance. I love her recipes and her photography and photo editing advice, and am salivating over her new cookbook. I haven't gotten my hands on a copy...yet...but am contemplating doing a giveaway soon on my main blog of one so that I'll just have to buy one. A girl can never have too many cookbooks, after all, but I digress. If you need an easy to put together goof proof and utterly delicious chocolate cake to take to an event, this is your recipe. For personal consumption, I'd be worried about the state of your arteries by the time you get to the bottom of the pan, so I definitely recommend sharing. With me.

Pioneer Woman's Best Ever Chocolate Sheet Cake

Cake:
2 cups flour
2 cups sugar
1/4 t. salt
4 heaping T. cocoa powder
2 sticks butter
1 cup boiling water
1/2 cup buttermilk
2 whole beaten eggs
1 t. baking soda
1 t. vanilla

Frosting:
1/2 cup finely chopped pecans (I left them out, but I'm sured it'd be tasty with)
1 3/4 sticks butter
4 heaping T. cocoa powder
6 T. milk
1 t. vanilla
1 pound minus 1/2 cup powdered sugar (not sure why the minus 1/2 a cup - I just dumped it all in and it came out fine)

In a mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt. In a saucepan, melt the butter. Add the cocoa powder and stir together. Add boiling water and allow the mixture to boil for 30 seconds, then turn off the heat. Pour over the 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 the butter/chocolate mixture. Pour into a sheet cake pan and bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.

While cake is baking, make the icing. Chop the pecans finely. Melt butter in a saucepan. Add the cocoa powder and stir to combine, then turn off the heat. Add the milk, vanilla and powdered sugar and stir together. Add the pecans, stir together and pour over warm cake. It can be eaten right away and will be totally delicious but a bit sloppy. Let the icing set up for 30 minutes or so and it's perfection in a pan.