Not quite so crazy cake.

I think I've linked before to a "crazy cake" recipe -- here is an example.  These cakes are typically chocolate, containing flour, cocoa, sugar, water, and oil -- but no eggs or milk --- and are mixed with a fork right in an ungreased 9 x 13 baking dish.  They are leavened with vinegar and baking soda.   You are supposed to sift the dry ingredients into the dish, make three wells into which you pour oil, vinegar, and vanilla, then pour cold water over all and mix it up with a fork.  Mess-free and simple.  All that you dirty are one glass pan and the measuring cups.

Well, I don't own a sifter, and I hate biting into a lump of unreacted baking soda, so I typically whisk the dry ingredients in a separate bowl anyway before transferring them to the glass dish.  (Still, the bowl isn't exactly dirty after that -- you can just wipe it out.)  The other problem I have with crazy cake recipes is that I don't keep liquid vegetable oil around.  No soybean or canola oil here:  Just unrefined coconut oil, which is a solid at room temperature.  I have extra virgin olive oil, of course, but who wants those flavors in her chocolate cake?  Not me.

So I added a step today and I used my pastry blender to cut the coconut oil into the dry ingredients.  Coconut oil blends in very nicely to biscuit dough, I think -- at cool room temperature it stays solid, but is softer and easier to work in than cold butter.  I figured it would work well in crazy cake.   I didn't bother with the wells either, but added the vinegar and vanilla to the cold water.  And I was right -- it worked just fine.  It really didn't complicate the recipe much at all.  I did it in the morning while I made breakfast and we had it later that afternoon for snack.  

Did I mention it does great with whole wheat flour?  Did you notice it's vegan?

Here is my modified recipe for crazy cake in a 9x9 square pan -- just right for tea snack for the whole family without any leftovers.  I didn't even bother frosting it.

Slightly Less Crazy Cake

• 1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon  salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 Tablespoons coconut oil, solid
• 1 Tablespoon white distilled vinegar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 cup cold water

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Whisk flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, and cocoa powder in a bowl.  Cut in coconut oil with pastry blender or fork or whatever you do when you make biscuits, until uniformly granular.  Dump in ungreased 9x9 square pan.

Add vinegar and vanilla extract to the 1 cup cold water.  Pour over dry ingredients.  Mix well with fork.

Bake 40 minutes or until toothpick comes clean.  Frost, or don't. 

 

Comments

[Sarah]

Thanks for the tip! I have been known to make it with olive oil so that I wouldn't have to melt the coconut oil first. This cake has been a wonderful treat for my no-dairy, no-wheat son. (We use whole spelt flour.)