Sheath Cake

Let me first say, I have no clue why this is called Sheath Cake. Anyone?

Mom needed some redemption after I said she never made homemade biscuits. Well, it is true, she never did, but we also loved canned biscuits in our family. I'm sure if I had asked, she would have made them from scratch. Is that better? She made this cake a lot when we were kids. It is so very good. However, it was a bit of a disaster when I was making it this time. First, my cheap aluminum "to go" pan had a hole in it, so batter started leaking. Luckily, I had two small cake pans, so I decided to just make two small cakes with plans to take one to my friends and one to work. I started the icing too early and ended up letting it go a little too long on the heat, so then it was not the right consistency. I managed to save the one pictured above to give to my friends (although not exactly how I would have like it), but the other was a complete mess. I didn't bother taking it to work. (I did have a few bites of my own though!) My favorite thing about this cake is the icing! When I have a real craving for chocolate, I've been known to just make a small serving of icing and eat off it. Terrible for me? YES! So good? YES!! I have an incredible sweet tooth.

Here's the recipe:

Sheath Cake

2 c. sugar
2 c. flour
1 stick butter
1/2 c. Crisco
4 Tbsp. cocoa powder
1 c. water
1-1/2 c. buttermilk
2 eggs, slightly beaten
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla

Icing:

1 stick butter
4 Tbsp. cocoa powder
6 Tbsp. canned milk
1 (1 lb.) box powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Sift the sugar and flour together in a large mixing bowl. In a saucepan, bring butter, Crisco, cocoa powder and water to a boil. Pour over flour and sugar mixture and mix well. Add buttermilk, eggs, baking soda, and vanilla. Mix well; pour into greased and floured 9x13 pan.  Bake 20 minutes at 400.

For icing, mix together butter, cocoa powder and milk. Bring to a rapid bowl and remove from heat. Add remaining ingredients and spread on hot cake directly from the oven.*

*If done right, it should be "melty" looking on the cake but will cool nicely.

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NOTE:  I made this again later using a SHEET pan to bake in instead of 9x13 pan.  MUCH BETTER!!