Wacky Cake ~ Vegan Chocolate Cake ~ Chocolate Cake without eggs, butter or milk

A couple of weeks back, I wanted to bake a cake for my neighbor. When I was going through the options, I was pretty sure that chocolate cake would be a good choice, since her little boy seems to have a decided partiality to all things chocolate. And I have to admit I completely understand the partiality, since I feel the same about all things chocolate :) Since I have a lot of chocolate desserts among my pinned posts, I decided to chose one of those recipes to try. Finally I settled on wacky cake. I have come across many versions of wacky cake or crazy cake as some people refer to it. If you are wondering what is wacky cake, it a cake that is made with no eggs, butter or milk or even bowls, the cake is entirely mixed directly in the baking pan, making for an easy cleanup as well :)

After reading up on wacky cakes, I learned that this cake seems to have existed as early as World war II when there were shortages of things like butter and eggs etc.Here is an interesting article in the LA Times about this cake and its origin if you would like to read up on it. This cake was super easy to make and it turned out moist and delicious. Surprisingly the cake tasted even more delicious the next day. This one's a keeper and I cannot wait to try more variations of this kind of cake :)

Click here for a printable view of this recipe

Ingredients and Method to make Wacky cake (adapted from this recipe)

1 and 1/2 cup all purpose flour (maida)

2 and 1/2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup sugar

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp white vinegar

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 Tbsp oil + a little extra for greasing the dish

1 cup water

Pre heat oven @ 350 deg F ( approx 180 deg C)

Grease a 8 inch square baking dish and keep aside.

In the same baking dish, add the first five dry ingredients and mix well. Make three depressions in the dry mix, two small and one larger one.

Add vinegar and vanilla extract separately to the two smaller depressions and oil to the larger depression.

Add water and mix everything together gently, make sure to scrape the corners in order to include any flour in the corners.

Place the dish in the middle rack and bake for 32 to 35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Remove, cool a little, glaze the cake or top with a little powdered sugar , slice and enjoy.

I used glaze this time, the recipe for the glaze is given below

For the glaze

1 cup powdered sugar / confectioners sugar

2 and 1/2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder ( see notes)

2 Tbsp milk

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Mix all the ingredients together in a small bowl , drizzle on top of the cake when it cools a little and spread evenly. Slice and enjoy. This quantity was just right to cover this entire cake.

Notes:

With 2 and 1/2 Tbsp of cocoa powder the glaze tasted slightly chocolatey, if you want a more pronounced chocolate taste increase the cocoa powder to 3 Tbsp or even 3 and 1/2 Tbsp of cocoa powder or to taste.

If you are not comfortable with mixing ingredients directly in the baking pan, mix everything in another bowl and pour into pre greased baking pan.

If you are looking for other egg free / eggless bakes with chocolate, here are few more,