Cake Recipe: Chocolate Wacky Cake

This is a great recipe!  A great chocolate cake recipe! Kids birthday cakes, cupcakes, in fact any jolly cake that you like.  How you decorate it, will be the deciding factor - you can downgrade or upgrade your version.  Since I rediscovered this recipe, I have made about 4 in the last week.

Why?

*  I only have to use one bowl (minimal washing up!)

*  Ingredients are so simple, no rushing out to find the margarine because I didn't realise that I didn't have enough.  

*  No eggs and milk- for those of you that can't have or don't want the animal products in your cakes.

*  It takes 5 minutes to make, if you're Chad(that would be my 8 year old) maybe 20 minutes - but it was so simple, I hardly had to supervise him.  

*  Chocolate - yummy!

Ingredients

1 and1/2 half cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 tablespoon white vinegar
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water or milk

Put all the dry ingredients into the bowl, no sifting required.  I do sift my bicarbonate of soda because it can get lumpy and then not dissolve.  If you want to spoil a cake, take a bite with a piece of bicarb that hasn't dissolved.  Disgusting!  Which by the way is not in the picture because I accidentally put baking powder in the picture and then 2 cocoa's and no vinegar.  I couldn't tell you what I was thinking when I was doing this.

 

Once all the dry ingredients have been added, grab a fork and mix it until it looks beautifully brown like mine:)

Make 3 holes in the dry ingredients.  In the one put vinegar, the next the vanilla essence and then lastly the oil in the third.

Pour your one cup water or milk over the lot and mix with a fork until its all mixed in.  Can you believe it can be so simple?  Of course I have to always test everything I make and so a couple of finger dipping moments are required though I would never confess to that in public.  Just look for the tell tale sign of chocolate around my mouth.

Stick it in the oven for about 30 minutes at 180 degrees Celsius or until its done.  Normally I prod it with a kebab stick (without the meat on of course) and check that there is no sticky goo stuck to it.  And then you know its done.

And then?  These are some of the things you can do with this recipe, just so you can see how versatile this cake is!

The English Kitchen

Food Loves Writing

Bankrupt Vegan

Now how can you not love this !?

For those of you who love a little bit of history:  Apparently this cake is also known as the Depression Cake, because it was a cake made during that time, when money was tight and cakes were a luxury that few could afford.  I love the fact that someone came up with a recipe like this to help during those tough times.  We all have them at one time or another.

So go on, get the cake in the oven, make a good strong pot of coffee and invite some friends over!