Wacky Cake/Depression Era Cake aka Crazy Cake

 

Right now eggs are $5.++ a dozen because of bird flu.  For bakers and breakfast businesses that's a problem. 

I happened to come across a recipe that was popular during the Depression Era for a cake that uses no eggs or milk.  Here is the recipe:

Wacky Cake

Wacky cake is made without milk or eggs and is a moist, dark, and delicious chocolate cake. A brainchild of the Depression era when ingenious cooks developed a cake that could be made without expensive and scarce ingredients. Frost with your favorite icing.

Submitted by Mary Knipe

Prep Time:

 

10 mins

Cook Time:

 

30 mins

Total Time:

 

40 mins

Servings:

 

10

Yield:

 

1 (8x8-inch) cake

Ingredients

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

• 1 cup white sugar

• 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1 teaspoon baking soda

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil

• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 1 cup water

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).

2. Sift flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt together in an 8x8-inch ungreased cake pan. Make 3 depressions in flour mixture; pour oil into one well, vinegar into second, and vanilla into third well. Pour water over all, then stir with a fork until well blended.

3. Bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30 to 40 minutes. (allrecipes)

4. 
   

   

   1

   
   

No mixing bowl needed. All ingredients can be mixed in the pan.

Here are some websites to view

Southern Living Wacky Cake

Italian Chef Wacky Cake. Eight Variations

Quaint Cooking

Sweet Little Bluebird -Vanilla Crazy Cake

That's it ***

Peanut Butter Cookies

I was snowed in and I just had to have something sweet. I checked out the fridge already knowing what I would find but thinking maybe I’d missed something and there was something I could throw together to get my“sugar high”. I opened the fridge and the same assortment met me that was there upon my previous inspection.

-
-
-
-

celery
¼ bottle of champagne
butter
browning lettuce
and some other stuff that didn’t go together.

Next stop, the pantry.

Aha! We have a *****WINNER*****!

Show me what you’re working with.



We've got the dregs of white sugar, brown sugar, one egg, peanut butter, vanilla.

Flourless peanut butter cookies

I had flour but I wanted it quick and easy.

Here's the recipe I used. It's from allrecipes.com

Only 3 main Ingredients

Notice I have 5 ingredients. This was after consulting a few more recipes for the flourless cookies.

n 1 cup peanut butter
n 1 cup white sugar
n 1 egg

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C).

2. Combine ingredients

and drop by teaspoonfuls on cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 minutes. ( Play the Jeopardy theme right here as you tap your nails on the counter)

Let cool. ( Still playing the Jeopardy theme) Recipe doesn't make very many, so you could double recipe as you desire.

George Washington Carver I could kiss you .

The History of Peanut Butter by Mary Bellis (quote taken from About.com)

"Agricultural chemist, George Washington Carver discovered three hundred uses for peanuts and hundreds more uses for soybeans, pecans and sweet potatoes. He start popularizing uses for peanut products including peanut butter, paper, ink, and oils beginning in 1880. The most famous of Carver's research took place after he arrived in Tuskeegee in 1896. However, Carver did not patent peanut butter as he believed food products were all gifts from God. The 1880 date precedes all other inventors except of course for the Incas, who were first. It was Carver who made peanuts a
significant crop in the American South in the early 1900's.”

NOTE: Rolling the dough around in your hands can be a little sticky so I used disposable gloves.

THAT'S IT***