Kitra: This week I wanted a cake-y cake. Something fluffy, that I could top with frosting, and feel like I was having a tiny celebration (instead of isolating at home and refinishing my dresser for the… 3rd? 4th? time).

Jordan: Meanwhile—though Kitra is the one waiting out a COVID exposure period—I’ve spent the day at home with maybe a cold, maybe allergies, or maybe just general exhaustion. Whatever it is, I’m in the type of mood where a tiny celebration just sounds like a tiny chore. I wanted a cake that I didn’t even have to turn out of the pan.

Chocolate cake is usually good for any occasion, so seemed like a solid route to go here.

We made the chocolate cake from Odette Williams’s Simple Cakes, but honestly, this post is more of a set of suggestions than anything. You can use this chocolate cake or another one. Sunday Chocolate Cake is a mood, not a recipe.

For me, I needed something adorable to look at while my bedroom is covered in wood dust, and wanted to use a bunch of freeze-dried strawberries. So, 6-inch 2-layer cake with strawberry buttercream and—importantly—sprinkles.

My cake has some added cinnamon and chili—when I’m sick, I want everything to be a little bit spicy—and an icing based on the one we use for Texas chocolate sheet cake, but more chocolatey and less sweet.

I don’t know that this cake is going to be one I come back to, though it’s perfectly lovely. It’s just so moist that it transforms from fluffy into something… bouncy?

Bouncy is definitely the right word. It’s a flexible recipe, though. I realized that I had no milk, so reached for coconut milk… only to find I had no coconut milk either. Or cream. Or emergency shelf-stable almond milk. So mine was made with water and nonfat milk powder and gluten-free flour and you know what? It came out perfectly fine.

And I used buttermilk because that is never the wrong answer when you actually have it in the house.

So know that if you just need a Sunday Chocolate Cake and your pantry is a little bare, you can probably make it work as long as you have flour and cocoa.

As an added bonus, making a half batch of batter (we both did) means that things bake and cool faster so we went from 0 to cake in about 90 minutes.

Take the below offering and do what you will with it. Just remember: Sunday Chocolate Cake is but a state of mind.

Kitra: We had about 3% left in our cake batteries for the day today, which means we were looking for something *easy* that did not require a trip to the store.

Jordan: This cake, it turns out, is a perfect 3% energy cake. I would say that it perhaps even charged our cake batteries slightly!

As always, the place to turn for a “no thank you I’d rather nap” cake is Snacking Cakes, which we love.

This is the basic vanilla cake from the book, with a bit of malt powder added (which is one of many variations the author suggests). I don’t know if it’s the malt or just the cake, but this was one of the most beautifully golden cakes I have ever seen.

Also, it’s so moist and fluffy and… spongey? In a good way. It’s really a solid cake, very soft and pretty.

And (in case you’ve forgotten the premise of Snacking Cakes from the last time we referenced it), it’s also a very easy batter that requires just a bowl and a whisk to make.

We both agreed a glaze was the way to go here, since we wouldn’t have to wait for the cake to cool completely, and also no stand mixer or saucepan would be needed. And luckily, we both turned and said “milk chocolate glaze?”

Unfortunately, Kitra was out of milk chocolate… which turned out to be incredibly fortunate.

We were debating the merits of cocoa powder versus walking to CVS for a chocolate bar, when I realized: HOT COCOA MIX.

This cake is good, but the star of this really is the topping. It’s somewhere between a glaze and a frosting—somehow both swoopable and pourable—and it has that perfect amount of artificial flavor that you need when the weather has gone from 70° and sunny to snowing and windy over the course of a weekend.

It’s milky, not overwhelmingly sweet, and I would eat it by the spoonful if we’d made any more than we needed for the cake. I love it. 10/10 will make again. I would eat it in a box. I would eat it with a fox. I would eat it sitting on a pile of rocks. You get the idea.

Kitra: If I had to pick the defining cake of my childhood, it’s this one.

Jordan: We should note that we are not from Texas.

But we did grow up in a household with many, many editions of Taste of Home.

Our grandmother would send us the annual “best of” cookbook each year and while there are some questionable recipes in there, there are also some gems.

Those books were pretty hit and miss, but our copies fell right open to the hits (usually one or two in each book). I think the Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake pages eventually fell out of the book due to overuse.

Not that you can actually over-use this recipe, because it is a perfect cake. If I had to pick only cake that I could ever eat again—some sort of bargain with a demented wizard or something—it would probably be this one. It’s that good.

It is also hideous, often a trademark of very good cakes. (Thanks, stovetop icing that somehow sets both too fast and too slow but tastes so good no one cares that the whole thing looks like a crumpled paper bag.)

You can make the whole thing (cake and icing both) in a single saucepan with a whisk and a spatula. It takes longer to cool than it does to mix and bake, which is unfortunate because you’ll want to eat it immediately.

It’s a chocolate cake that isn’t too chocolatey, it’s a sheet cake that is thin enough that the size doesn’t feel overwhelming, it can serve a crowd or one, it keeps for days on the counter, etc. There is no end to the upsides of this very understated cake.

The only thing I’d disagree with there is Kitra’s contention that it keeps for days on the counter. It could keep for days on the counter, probably, but it never lasts that long. Especially not if you happen to cut slivers off of the edge every time you walk by, which you will.

There are people who make this with pecans, but those people are just uncomfortable with the idea of an ugly but good cake, which makes them wrong. Let it be what it is and don’t try to fix it. Especially because they do not even make it less ugly.

Some of you may be coming to this recipe already believing that it’s not right if it doesn’t have pecans, and you’re welcome to add them. However, if you’re new to Texas sheet cake, we really recommend doing it without because this cake needs nothing. No added crunch, no whipped cream or ice cream, no powdered sugar. It’s perfect exactly as it is.

Let the slicing commence! *waves race flag*

Kitra: It is snowing in DC today, which means it is the best possible time for a warm bowl of cake.

Jordan: This is a great snow day cake. It’s a great cake in general, but it’s an especially great snow day cake.

Did you stand in line for an hour yesterday to panic-stock your pantry, but now you’re too tired to make a real cake?

Did you avoid the grocery store (hi, us too) and so you have no butter, milk, or flour?

Are you feeling exceptionally cozy and want to maximize the time spent holding something warm and eating things with a spoon while wrapped in an entire duvet?

Have you been sledding, building snowcreatures, or walking a dog who refuses to wear dog boots and now you’re cold and in need of chocolate?

Boy! Have! We! Got! A! Cake! For! You!

We first made this cake a month ago, for a socially distanced gathering/new year’s party/birthday for our mother. Kitra stumbled across it on Joy the Baker and we knew instantly that it was our mom’s birthday cake.

It was gluten-free (which means our dad could eat it), grain-free (which means our mom wanted to eat it), chocolate (which makes everyone happy), warm and requiring minimal work (perfect for an outdoor meal in January), and we could serve it with a giant spoon out onto plates (which makes it great party food).

There were five of us and we were all very full of appetizers, small food, and good cocktails (the ideal dinner party menu), and we still managed to finish the entire thing.

And I have been wanting to make it again every single day since.

It takes about 20 minutes to mix together, 20 minutes to bake, and 5 minutes to cool so that you don’t hurt yourself.

Cake start to finish in less than an hour! And since it’s mostly egg it is technically breakfast if you’re me and forgot to eat anything before jumping into cake day.

And while we love the original flavorings of orange and nutmeg, you could really flavor it however you want—which means that the only required ingredients are eggs, chocolate chips, and sugar. All of which you probably have.

If you’re making it in a half batch like we both did today, you don’t even need much of any of those either. A half batch is a great size to eat on your own over the course of the day, or share with someone if you live with a creature who isn’t a dog (sorry Sophie, no chocolate cake.)

I mean, I can’t promise that there will be any cake left by the time my partner gets home from work. He doesn’t have Instagram so he doesn’t need to know this happened at all.

It really is easy to hide the evidence here. I washed all 3 dishes while the cake was baking, which means even in my tiny kitchen with my even tinier sink there’s really no trace of it except the smell of snow day happiness.