Chef Susan Odell: I'm Chef Susan Odell at foodell.

com. A professional teaching chef and a graduate of Le Cordon Bleu, and I'm from Texas. That makes me extra qualified to teach you how to make the classic chocolaty favorite Texas Sheet Cake, let's get started.

First of all we got two sticks of unsalted butter, that's 8 ounces worth, we're going to melt that over a medium, medium low heat with 2/3 of cup of just tap water and I've got a heaping 1/2 a cup of cocoa powder.

Now you want to just mix that all together and then when the butter melts, it will be nice and smooth and we can add it to the rest of our batter. Now that our butter has melted with our cocoa powder, we're going to mix our dry ingredients. This is 2 cups of all-purpose flour, I've measured it and now I am sifting it. To the sifted flour I've got 2 cups of granulated sugar and a teaspoon of salt, just mix those together and then we'll add our wet ingredients.

The rest of my batter ingredients consist of two eggs, I've got a cup of buttermilk, I have a teaspoon of baking soda, and I am going to add 2 teaspoons of vanilla, just want to give that a good whisk and stir all of those together before adding it back to the dry ingredients.

So complete your cake batter. First add your butter and cocoa mixture to your flour and sugar, and then just pouring your egg and buttermilk mixture, we are not using a mixer, we want to be very gentle, this is going to be a delicious light fluffy chocolate cake, just mix all the ingredients gently until combined.

Now that the cake batter is done, we want to prepare cake pan. I've got some spray oil, this is grape seed oil, you can use canola or vegetable, and then for extra insurance, against sticking, I want to just add about table spoon of flour and roll that around my pan.

Now I will just give the pan a nice tuck and it's ready to add your batter. Just pour the cake batter into your prepared pan; I am going to bake the cake for 30 minutes, 350 degrees. While the cake is baking, I'm going to go ahead and make the frosting. I am turning my pan over a medium heat and I've got 1 stick of butter or four ounces, this is 3 heaping tablespoons of cocoa powder. I'm going to melt that together and make it nice and smooth and then add some more goodies to this.

Once your butter is melted, add 4 tablespoon of half-and-half and stir that really well to incorporate. Okay, to finish this off we've got a teaspoon of vanilla, 2 cups of sifted confectioner sugar, measure first and then sift, and 1 cup of chopped pecans.

My cake has been baking for 30 minutes, it's puffed, it's beautiful, it looks done. I'm just going to test it, sticking a toothpick in, and indeed it's clean, my cake is done. Let your delicious cake cool on a wire rack for about 5 minutes, then you want to pour your hot frosting over the top and smooth it nicely.

Be sure to let your Texas Sheet Cake cool completely in the pan before you cut it and serve it. Bon Apptit!