Wacky Cake

Hannah and Haley came over yesterday and Hannah wanted to bake. We decided on Snickerdoodles, but then I mentioned Wacky Cake. Hannah was intrigued, so...we made both.

Wacky Cake was invented, so I hear, during either World War II or the Depression, take your pick. Wacky Cake is a deep chocolate cake that uses no eggs, milk, or butter--perfect for the lactose-intolerant among us.

Here's the ingredients:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup white sugar
4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
6 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 cup water




How to make the cake:
1.Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (or 175 degrees C).

2.Sift the flour, sugar, salt, soda, and cocoa together into an 8x8 inch ungreased (I love this! no butter-under-the fingernails!) cake pan.

3. Make three depressions (wells) in the dry ingredients in the pan.

4. Pour the oil into one well, the vinegar into second, and the vanilla into third well (we used my homemade vanilla--yum!).
5. Pour the water over all, and stir well with fork. Be sure to get into all the corners and edges, or you'll have dry stuff in the corners of your finished cake.

6 .Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 to 40 minutes, or until tooth pick inserted comes out clean. Cool before cutting--it really does taste better after it's cooled for a bit, so try not to hurry the first taste. It will also come out of the pan easier.

You can frost with your favorite icing. OR try what Hannah and I did. She'd never seen a cake decorated with powdered sugar sifted over a doily. So I found one that we thought would be pretty and used it for our decoration.

Hannah and I sifted confectioners sugar over a doily to make a pretty pattern.

The finished product. Pretty!
And easy--the best part of all.