I didn't even know that Denver Sheet Cake was a thing until I saw a recipe for it on The New York Times Cooking website. The recipe is fairly similar to the two Texas Sheet Cakes I've made (this one and this one), so I still don't know what exactly makes a sheet cake qualify as the Denver variety.
To make the cake batter, you combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt; fold in a mixture of butter, cocoa, and water that has been heated until the butter melts; and stir in buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. I had trouble getting the batter smooth. I mixed it by hand and when I added the cocoa mixture to the dry ingredients I got a ton of lumps, which is not surprising because that's what tends to happen when you add a large volume of low-viscosity liquid to flour. I contemplated putting the batter through a sieve but instead worked out all of the lumps by using a silicone spatula to flatten them against the side of my mixing bowl. It was a chore. But once I was done I poured the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan and put the cake in the oven.
After baking, the cake had a markedly domed top. It took a few hours to cool the cake completely before I could make the frosting, but the frosting was easy. You heat butter, cocoa, and buttermilk until the butter melts; transfer the mixture to a mixing bowl; add vanilla, salt, powdered sugar, and chopped toasted walnuts; and mix until smooth. I poured the warm, glossy frosting over the cake and while it was quite soft and spread easily, it had enough body that the frosting stayed in an even layer and didn't just end up pooling around the lower edges of the cake.
The recipe says you should allow the frosting to firm up before slicing the cake. I waited a couple of hours and the frosting seemed relatively firm. I pulled the cake out of the pan by using the parchment paper as a sling and the cake flexed a lot in the middle, creating loads of crinkles in the frosting (as you can see in the photo above). I started to slice the cake but the frosting was still a little runny -- it would slowly start drooping over the sides of each slice. So I abandoned the effort and left the cake alone until the following morning. The next day, the frosting was much more manageable and stayed put after slicing.
There were some strange features of this cake that became apparent only after I sliced it. There was a very dense layer at the bottom of each slice -- generally a sign that something has gone terribly wrong during mixing. And there were some oddly large air holes in several slices. I wasn't feeling great about this quirky cake with its disheveled appearance. And I didn't particularly care for the way it tasted, either. While I liked the cocoa flavor of the frosting and the nuts, I didn't think that the cake itself had much flavor. The cake was, however, incredibly moist. And I will say that the dense bottom layer didn't affect the taste at all.
But I was truly surprised when I received an unusually high number of laudatory emails from co-workers who loved the cake. Their raves are enough to make me reconsider making it again. But if I do, I will certainly follow the suggestion in the recipe headnote to double or even triple the amount of cocoa in the cake and frosting to achieve a greater depth of flavor.
Recipe: "Denver Sheet Cake" adapted from The Junior League at Home, printed in The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
To make the cake batter, you combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt; fold in a mixture of butter, cocoa, and water that has been heated until the butter melts; and stir in buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. I had trouble getting the batter smooth. I mixed it by hand and when I added the cocoa mixture to the dry ingredients I got a ton of lumps, which is not surprising because that's what tends to happen when you add a large volume of low-viscosity liquid to flour. I contemplated putting the batter through a sieve but instead worked out all of the lumps by using a silicone spatula to flatten them against the side of my mixing bowl. It was a chore. But once I was done I poured the batter into a parchment-lined 9-inch by 13-inch pan and put the cake in the oven.
The recipe says you should allow the frosting to firm up before slicing the cake. I waited a couple of hours and the frosting seemed relatively firm. I pulled the cake out of the pan by using the parchment paper as a sling and the cake flexed a lot in the middle, creating loads of crinkles in the frosting (as you can see in the photo above). I started to slice the cake but the frosting was still a little runny -- it would slowly start drooping over the sides of each slice. So I abandoned the effort and left the cake alone until the following morning. The next day, the frosting was much more manageable and stayed put after slicing.
There were some strange features of this cake that became apparent only after I sliced it. There was a very dense layer at the bottom of each slice -- generally a sign that something has gone terribly wrong during mixing. And there were some oddly large air holes in several slices. I wasn't feeling great about this quirky cake with its disheveled appearance. And I didn't particularly care for the way it tasted, either. While I liked the cocoa flavor of the frosting and the nuts, I didn't think that the cake itself had much flavor. The cake was, however, incredibly moist. And I will say that the dense bottom layer didn't affect the taste at all.
But I was truly surprised when I received an unusually high number of laudatory emails from co-workers who loved the cake. Their raves are enough to make me reconsider making it again. But if I do, I will certainly follow the suggestion in the recipe headnote to double or even triple the amount of cocoa in the cake and frosting to achieve a greater depth of flavor.
Recipe: "Denver Sheet Cake" adapted from The Junior League at Home, printed in The New York Times.
Previous Posts:
- "I'll Stick with the Proven Winner: Salted Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake," March 29, 2016.
- "Baked Sunday Mornings: Chocolate Texas Sheet Cake with Peanut Butter Frosting," March 1, 2015.
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