Depression-Era Baking is Back! Thanks, Trump Voters & Nonvoters!

Bruce Coffman
3 minutes ago
3 min read

Thanks to Donald Trump, his rabid fan base and non voter pukes, Depression-era everything is back! Make America Broke Again! Holla!

One food part of that is the resurgence of Depression-era recipes like this delightfully vegan Wacky Cake. It was called Wacky Cake because like other cakes of the time it was made without traditional ingredients using what broke people had on hand, which wasn't much. Kind of like now.

The recipe below is credited to recipe developer Michelle Bottalico and I found it in a tastingtable dot com article. Anyone holding copyright on the recipe, please contact me and I will remove it. I'm not making money off of it. I'm sharing it with readers who need to save money any way they can and have tried my best to give you proper credit. Holla!

I'm personally loving this recipe because it's simple, easy, cheap, doesn't require eggs and is mixed and baked in the same pan saving cleanup hassle. Let's get to it!

Ingredients

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

¾ cup granulated sugar

⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon baking soda (not powder, soda)

½ teaspoon salt

⅓ cup oil plus more for greasing. The original recipe says canola. I don't know why that's specified.

1 tablespoon white or apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons vanilla extract or the alternative below if you need an alcohol free option.

1 cup water

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Grease an 8x8 or 9x9-inch baking pan with oil.

Place the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt in the pan and whisk well to mix, shaking the pan to help it mix evenly.

Make 1 large and 2 small wells in the flour mixture with a spoon or the bottom of a measuring cup. I'm personally not sure what purpose the wells serve and will be skipping this mess if I make it. I'm just pouring the shit in.

Pour the oil in the large well and the vinegar and vanilla extract in the small wells. Why?

Pour the water over all of the ingredients and stir just until the batter is evenly combined. Do not overmix.

Bake the cake for 30-35 minutes for an 8x8-inch pan and 25-30 minutes for a 9x9-inch pan until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.

Let the cake cool completely in the pan before serving.

The article said it was sometimes sprinkled with powdered sugar. No frosting, no nothing extra. Nothing fancy. Just a nice sweet treat without a lot of fuss or expense when the chocolate cake craving hits. And that's... a fabulous thing! It's vegan as is and I'm sure you could make it gluten free by swapping out the flour with your preferred alternative or the Bob's Red Mill shown below and even keto friendly by swapping out the sugar for an artificial sweeter like Monk Fruit, also below. Yum.

If you or someone you will be serving needs a no alcohol alternative to vanilla extract, that is shown below with other affiliate links. If you buy through these links I get a small amount of credit to buy somethings I need but you don't pay a penny extra. Bonus! Thanks for reading!