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Tuesday, April 6, 2010

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.

8 comments:

  1. Hey Granny Sue!

    You are the best Granny! Baking cakes with the grand kids. Your cake looks yummy! I have never tried the powdered sugar like that before. It sure is pretty!

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  2. This is one cake my mom would let me bake without supervision when I was just about your granddaughter's age. I thought it was magical -- vinegar in a cake! If any of it survived after three days, we'd smear squares of it with butter and get it crusty under the broiler. O. M. G.

    Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

    P.S. My grandfather used to make a killer sauerkraut chocolate cake.

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  3. Fabulous! I love cake and since I don't eat eggs this is perfect! I'm going to try it this weekend.

    Jai

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  4. Angela, I enjoy it as much as they do. Since they were little girls, my granddaughters and I have cooked together. Actually, it was a way of getting to know some of then since they lived a good ways away and could be shy when they came to visit. Getting to break eggs and make things was the best icebreaker.

    OK, Megan, as soon as there is ever any left over, I am so trying that!

    Jai, it occurred to me when we were making the cake that this could be something a lot of people might like since it avoids dairy products. I hope you like it.

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  5. My mom used to make wacky cake all the time, I loved it. I am going to have to make it for my kids.

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  6. Show Hope how to do it, Chris. She'd love it!

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  7. Looks delicious! Now I'm wondering about the t-shirt, "I'm not short, . . . " what??

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  8. We used to make this all of the time. I'm not sure why I stipped. I think Bonnie Butter Cake became the new favorite. Next time the Grand kids are over it's on. :)
    Thank you for the reminder and for the chives idea for my egg salad. I love you.

    ReplyDelete

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