Chocolate Cake from The Great Depression

Posted On April 10, 2020

No eggs, no milk, no butter? No problem!

I mean, you will need SOME ingredients in order to make this cake, but you probably have most of them sitting in your cabinets.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tbsp cocoa
• 1 cup coffee
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp ground ginger
• 6 tbsp canola oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup water
• 1 tsp apple cider vinegar

Instructions:

Now, before going all #1, 2, 3 on you I have to disclose that I made this using my shiny new, wondrous Kitchen Aid mixer. You can make this is a regular mixing bowl with a fork. Or spoon. Or hand mixer. Whatever you’ve got, it will turn out delicious, don’t fret!

I used the flat scraping attachment for this one, but use whatever you’re comfortable with and you’ll be just fine!

1. Grease a 9 inch round pan, or whatever you have, just note that your cake may not have the same thickness or shape. I mean, if you use a square pan, your cake won’t come out a circle like mine. But all that is cosmetic. Try to get something around 9 inches and it’ll have a nice thickness.
2. Preheat oven to 375°F.
3. Mix flour, sugar, salt, cocoa, baking soda, & ground ginger together (loosely is fine, just get it all in the same bowl).
4. Add the coffee, water, oil, and vanilla extract and mix the resulting batter pretty well. Don’t worry too much about over-beating – there aren’t any eggs in here!
5. Finally, add in the apple cider vinegar slowly and continue mixing. It should begin to foam up a little. This chemical reaction is the same as your 3rd grade volcano experiment: baking soda + vinegar = carbon dioxide. Stop mixing!
6. Quickly dump the contents into your greased baking dish. Don’t beat it on the counter – you WANT the bubbles inside the cake! Place immediately in the oven.
7. Bake 20 – 25 minutes, checking to ensure you’re not over-cooking. I’ll post pics below of the process so you’ll be able to tell when it’s done.

Tip: it’s always done if you can insert a toothpick or butter knife in the middle and have it come out cleanly.

Finishing Your Creation!

To finish, allow to cool all the way. You can speed this up by putting the entire cake in the refrigerator or freezer. The bottom should feel completely cool, and you should be able to pry the cake (gently you beast!) from the pan and onto your decorating surface.

Frost with whatever frosting you have or can make. Or, have a naked cake! We had some chocolate fudge frosting hiding out in our cupboard, so we whipped it (to give it fluffiness and volume) and then I frosted it directly on the cake stand. You can make two of these and use a whole lot more frosting to make a double layer cake, or anything your heart desires. For me, I like simple. So I put the naked cake down on my prettiest depression glass cake stand and frosted it right on there!

You would never know this cake didn’t have milk, eggs, or butter! It’s beautiful!