Dr Pepper Texas Sheet Cake
Chocolate sheet cakes were popular among early 20th-century cooks from Kentucky to California. Dr Pepper cake takes its cues from those recipes. Fragrant with spices like ground cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg and topped with chocolate frosting, that’s speckled with pecans, it may remind some of Texas sheet cake. For nearly 20 years, I baked a version of this sweet treat to celebrate the birthday of a friend and neighbor from Wichita Falls, Texas, who was haunted (in a good way) by her childhood memories of the delicious dessert. —Toni Tipton-Martin