Food

Brown sugar chocolate sheet cake with chocolate labneh frosting

Brown sugar chocolate sheet cake with chocolate labneh frosting Image by Carly Pildis

By Carly Pildis April 29, 2021

This is the perfect time for sheet cake. It feeds a crowd, it’s colorful and frankly, everyone loves it. A one bowl wonder with plenty of kids to lick the bowl after you make frosting – the easiest frosting ever.

Ingredients

Labneh Frosting

2 cups high quality chocolate chips
1 ½ cups labneh, room temperature
Tablespoon sweet unsalted butter
Sprinkles (I used Supernatural Rainbow Starfetti)

One Bowl Brown Sugar Chocolate Sheet cake

2 shots espresso
1 ½ cups flour
1 ½ cup brown sugar
1 cup dutch cocoa
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
Pinch of salt
2 large eggs
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
¾ cup buttermilk

Take labneh out of the fridge!

Preheat the oven to 350. Line a tray, jelly roll pan, or baking casserole dish with parchment paper.

Whisk together dry ingredients. Make a well. Add wet ingredients. Mix until just combined.

Pour into your lined bakeware. Put in the oven and bake for 15 – 20 minutes.

While it bakes, melt your chocolate chips and butter. Cool the chocolate completely in a large bowl. This frosting is an homage/rip off of Amanda Hesser’s sour cream frosting and the same technique applies – the labneh and frosting must be the same temperature, both room temperature or it will be a grainy mess. Set aside a tablespoon of both and test – should mix together easily and smoothly.

Once the labneh and chocolate are at temperature, mix labneh in about ¼ cup at a time, until rich and fully combined. You will be left with an impossibly rich and tangy not too sweet frosting.

Once the cake is cool remove from the pan and set on a clean work surface. It’s easiest to do this on the same platter where you’ll be serving it from. Using a spoon make swirls of frosting all over your chocolate cake, down the sides and cover with sprinkles.

For more about the author and this recipe, click here.

Carly Pildis is an organizing and advocacy professional living in Washington, D.C.

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