Wacky cake is one of the more delightful discoveries of this fall’s cake baking efforts. I had long seen it in one of my favorite cookbooks (one of the vegetarian cookbooks by Jeanne Lemlin). I always glanced at it, with mild curiosity, but never before managed to take it on as a project.
For some reason, I finally decided to try it. I was instantly taken by the whole process, as well as the end product. Wacky cake is so called for a few reasons. It uses no eggs, making it an atypical cake, I suppose. For a household like ours, which at times goes through eggs like there’s no tomorrow, a cake that you can make with no eggs is a good thing to have as part of you dessert repertoire. Wacky cake is also wacky because of the way it is made – and this is the really cool part: you mix it in the pan you are going to bake it in (and also subsequently eat it out of). A simple 8 by 8 glass Pyrex dish. You put all the dry ingredients in (and again, here is a cool part – the ingredients are ones I pretty much always have on hand – sugar, flour, cocoa, etc), mix them thoroughly – but gently, and then pour the wet ingredients on (again, stock stuff – water, vinegar, oil), mix again, and bake.
Very simple, honest.
The only thing is, you do need to start in advance enough for the cake to cool sufficiently so that you can then frost it and, again, leave time for the frosting to set up a bit. If you start too late, the cake will be lovely and warm when your dinner is done, but you won’t have been able to frost it, and, who wants to eat cake without frosting?
You leave the wacky cake in its 8 by 8 pan, cut pieces out, and serve them up with glasses of nice cold milk. Alden and Samantha love wacky cake.
For me, the thing about wacky cake is not its wackiness, but its texture. In a world in which dry, crumbly, not very nice chocolate cakes abound, wacky cake is remarkably moist and lovely. It is oddly light and rich at the same time (ill-making if you overindulge, in spite of its apparent lightness). It is nothing like a good brownie which, while moist, is also dense and chewy. Nor is it like cake, often crumbly and even if done well, probably verging on dry. In the end, it's the texture that is the magical thing about it.
The picture in the header
:: Perfect Party Cake. Made exactly as the directions directed. Made for the babysitter, as a thank you gift.
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wacky cake with nice cold milk
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6 comments:
Yep, wacky cake is yummy enought that it is easy for me to become slightly ill by overindulging.
So what's the point of talking about wacky cake unless you give us the recipe? Not being cranky or anything and I do have Jeanne Lemlin but just wondering.
alright... what's up with all the anonymous posting. I kinda think people should use their REAL names. you know, the better to build community with.
as for giving you the recipe. Ray and I have talked about this, and we suspect that fully "publishing" the recipe on the blog is probably a violation of copyright laws.
I am, however, happy to share the recipe. I have made a nice photocopy, and can send it to anyone who asks. But, for now, I'm not going to actually post it. (some recipes I use are already on the web, and I will provide links to them when that is the case). My next entry will showcase this neat trick. stay tuned!
So I did a little research on my favorite scholarly site (google) and I discovered that, just as I thought, wacky cake has been around for a while (i.e. Jeane Lemlin didn't invent it). So for those who would like to try it, just Google "wacky cake" and you 'll get a bunch of recipes all pretty similar. You can also go to an excellent source of just-about-any-recipe-you-care-to-name: www.recipesource.com, where you can also find wacky cake recipes. None of them is identical to Jeanne Lemlin's but most are pretty similar.
Tuna
Made this for my guests on Friday night, including the chocolate glaze which I thought was yummy. Why aren't you satisfied with it?
Tuna
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