Tag Archives: American Cake Off

VGNMOFO 2018: American Cakes: Hummingbird Cake

September 25, 2018

My goodness. I think this is the most popular cake I’ve made in a very long time. I’ve been asked three different times for the recipe, and I even debated posting this recipe BEFORE vegan mofo. Clearly I didn’t. Mostly because I never got my act together getting photos. I’ve made it for three different birthdays, making it perfect todays prompt- Birthday Bash. So what flavors should you expect with a Hummingbird Cake? Some floral notes? A super sweet syrup? What makes it “humming bird”? Well, it is actually pineapple and banana flavored cake with a cream cheese frosting.

As for the history of the cake- well that’s where things get messy. There are LOTS of theories, which is pretty common with any type of recipe. The most popular answer is that the cake originated in Jamaica. It is named a “doctor bird cake” because it is a common name for a Jamaican hummingbird.

Then there is the idea that this cake is naturally Southern in origin (er… Southern USA that is.) Any cake historian (is that a real job?) will agree that this cake was widely popularized by Southern Living in 1978. The recipe was submitted by Mrs. L.H. Wiggins of Greensboro, North Carolina. But here’s the thing- there might not be a L.H. Wiggins of Greensboro. Heck, even Southern Living is admitting this. It seems that there are many variations of this cake before 1978 where tropical fruit appear in a spiced cake in a tube pan. The idea of serving this styled cake in three layers with cream cheese frosting might of been a first.

American Cakes subscribes to the theory that Jamaican Airlines came up with the cake. Supposedly the airlines came up with a press packet that included a recipe for this cake. Why hummingbird? Well, their logo is of a hummingbird! Duh!

Whatever the history is, this cake is a classic in the South. It is Southern Living’s most requested recipe, and man is it delicious. This was a pretty easy cake to veganize, just sub the eggs for some aquafaba and that’s it. It took a little time to figure out the portions of the cream cheese frosting. The recipe below is JUST enough for 3 layers. If you want to make more, that’s fine. It is also worth noting that if you are making this vegan cake and aren’t vegan yourself, you can avoid by “fake” vegan food by buying mainstream accidentally vegan cream cheese frosting in a can.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2018 Tags: 1962-1979, American Cake Off, American Cakes, bananas, cream cheese, cream cheese frosting, pineapple, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2018

11 comments

VGNMOFO 2018: American Cakes: Cinnamon Flop

September 17, 2018

This week is budget week, and this is indeed a budget cake. Most of the ingredients are cheap ingredients that most people have in their pantry. The only “expensive” ingredient is the vegan butter that you put on the top, and the vegan milk of choice. But I used some homemade oatmilk, making it only cost pennies.

What I find really interesting about this recipe is how information changes from the American Cakes book when I start googling things. The book described this as a coffee cake, to much confusion to the international audience. No- there is no coffee flavor to this cake. Rather this is a cake you would have with your afternoon coffee, much like a teacake is for when you have tea. Most American coffee cakes are usually unfrosted, and have crumb topping. This cake has a crisp sugar topping instead of the crumb, which I haven’t really seen before. But some quick googling shows that most people describe this as a breakfast food. It might seem far fetched but makes sense, it is quick to make and by today’s standard of donuts and danishes, it isn’t so bad.

All the recipes that came up have an interesting marbling effect. Well, this is because the photos in the book doesn’t quite portray this, so I didn’t understand the recipe. I kept the slices of butter near the top and very thin. Most people I think put bigger chunks and dunk them deep into the batter. So I will give directions for my way of making this cake, but you can easily dip the butter further down the batter.

Many people say it is a variation of a Swedish Flop Cake, which seems like a stretch. There are many people describing the cake as having an Amish background. This seems really plausible. A recipe from American Cakes that I’ve been dying to try is the Moravian Sugar Cake, which seems to have similar buttery dimples in it.

So why is it a Cinnamon Flop? As Anne Byrn puts it

Could this coffee cake be named because the cook forgot the eggs and thought it would be a flop? Or was “flop” a corruption of the word “flap”, and could this have been an early breakfast recipe like flapjacks (pancakes) except without eggs? Webster’s dictionary says the first use of the word “flop” in America was 1728, a year after the Amish arrived.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2018 Tags: 1900-1916, American Cake Off, American Cakes, cakes, cinnamon flop, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2018

4 comments

VGNMOFO 2018: American Cakes: Fraunces Tavern Carrot Tea Cake

September 8, 2018

It’s November 25, 1783, and the last of the British troops leave New York City. Washing crosses the Harlem River and settles in Manhattan. This the Evacuation Day, the bookend to the Revolutionary War. I could describe it, but I swear my brain can’t process information regarding wars. Washington strutted his horse down Broadway and ate at Fraunces Tavern, supposedly eating this cake. Today the Tavern still stands, and is a historical landmark. If you ever visit New York City, it would be a interesting visit as it looks like the place is steeped in history and isn’t your normal tourist place (at least in NYC.) It even has a restaurant still open, but it is very much NOT vegan.

This cake is the first one for me to hit some roadblocks. Mostly because I wasn’t really thinking. I thought okay, replace the eggs, sub the butter, BAM DONE! I didn’t notice that there wasn’t any baking soda or powder. The cake would normally rise because it uses a creaming method that we see in pound cake- using sugar, butter, and eggs. Every vegan pound cake I’ve found uses baking soda or powder. I ended up with a cake that’s texture felt under baked.

So it was back to the drawing board. I tweaked the recipe, added baking powder or soda (I can’t remember now) and it still didn’t work. Yikes. I was getting really discouraged, although the flavor was really good. I was just trying to figure out how to balance the baking soda and oil with the existing recipe.

But then I made my Martha Washington Great Cake. The creaming method works with aquafaba! Amazing! I was over the moon from the news. I went back into the kitchen and pretty much just copied the cake from the book using the aquafaba, and wham bam! Done! No sweat what-so-ever! Crazy. But to add insult to injury, I re-read the description of the recipe, apparently an oil based recipe using baking soda has been floating around for years. In fact, you can try it right here, just sub the eggs.

So what makes this carrot cake (MY carrot cake) worth your time? Well, it is VERY different from most carrots cakes we eat today. Most modern carrot have a grated carrot in the mix, and almost always has cream cheese frosting. A style that is very American in it’s own right, and a recipe like this appears later in the book. But this cake uses boiled carrots that pureed, and folded into the batter. This gives the cake a beautiful color and flavor. Plus, Natalie Brown from Buzzfeed apparently fucking loves this cake.

I hope you take a chance on this cake as it is really yummy. Boiling and mashing 4 carrots take very little time, and it doesn’t need to be a perfect puree. And I specify Earth Balance butter since I am unsure how well this creaming method stands up to different styles.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2018 Tags: 1650-1799, American Cake Off, American Cakes, carrot cake, carrots, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2018

5 comments

VGNMOFO 2018: American Cakes: Coca Cola Cake

September 6, 2018

Soda and cake is a match made in heaven. Perhaps you were on a diet, and used it in a recipe with diet soda to cut down on calories from sugar? Maybe you were in college and only had soda instead of eggs on hand? Or we vegans know from PETA– you can use a can of soda in your cake instead of eggs. Now, YouTube is filled with “vegan cake mix hacks” videos but this drink is fairly old.

Nope- before cola and cake meant a drunk college girl is trying to make a cake with her new vegan phase it was known for two words. Church and the South. Yes, any respectable Southern woman would make a coke cake for their cake walks and Sunday socials (or whatever people make cakes for church functions.) Perhaps it is because Coca Cola is called Southern Champagne, or that the company is a heavy part of Atlanta’s identity.

Now you don’t have to use Coca Cola. You can use Pepsi, or perhaps any other cola out there. There are many “boutique” brands that make colas, at least in the United States. I strong recommend two things before buying. 1) Buy what you know you will drink. If you aren’t much of a soda fan, look around for a place you can buy one bottle. Doesn’t do you any good if you don’t want to drink the remaining 5 bottles that come in a six pack. 2) Avoid sugar-free versions. I made mine with diet store brand cola, and you could taste a hint of aspertaine in the cake. I am sure you would be able to taste the stevia in Zevia brand cola. But hey, go ahead and try it out. Why not?!

What are some fancy pants brands out there? Well, I always find that store-brands work just fine. But some organic and vegan options are Blue Sky, Jones, Maine Root, Boylan and Fentimens. And remember go nuts! Play around with sodas you find. Wanna try it with Birch Beer? Sounds good to me. Maybe Spruce? Or Sarsaparilla?! Maybe with that Chai Cola!? I don’t know, I don’t have time to make and EAT all this cake. But they all sound yummy to me.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2018 Tags: 1962-1979, American Cake Off, American Cakes, cake, coca-cola, coke, cola, soda, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2018

7 comments

VGNMOFO 2018: American Cakes: Martha Washington Great Cake

September 3, 2018

This is a cake I was very excited to try out. I never really had too many fruit cakes, but I found the photos very interesting. There was something very pretty about a pretty golden cake with lots of little berries baked inside. And there was also booze in the cake. I am always down with that. This cake has been altered quite a bit in the American Cakes cookbook. Many changes I am happy about, omitting the citron and lemon peels, and using white wine instead of the more heavy sweet fortified wines like brandy or madeira. Many online recipes also offer a frosting/icing to go on top of the cake, which I think it is too much. This is a rich dense cake, very similar to a pound cake with spiked fruit inside. I think it stands very well by itself.

This cake was made by Martha Washington– the first First Lady. She supposedly made this cake when George was returning home from serving as president, making it in time for Christmas. The recipe was written down by her Great Granddaughter Martha Parke Custis and is the main reason why the recipe still survives today.

Another thing that I liked from it’s modern adaptation is how much it has been scaled down. Part of the “great” in “great cake” is the sheer size. Readers of the blog might remember me describing the massive size of Election Cakes, and this cake was quite large as well.

Take 40 eggs & divide the whites from the yolks & beat them to a froth then work 4 pounds of butter to a cream & put the whites of eggs to it a spoon full at a time till it is well work’d then put 4 pounds of sugar finely powder’d to it in the same manner than put in the Youlks of eggs and 5 pounds of flower and 5 pounds of fruit, 2 hours will bake it add to it half an ounce of mace and nutmeg half a pint of wine & some fresh brandy.

I’ve even taken the size of the recipe down even further! The original recipe calls for a pound of currants, and I had to buy bulk organic currants. It wasn’t terribly expensive, but I found that the currants were quite old, and very dry. So they soaked up a LOT of wine. I later found that it was easier to find 10 oz boxes. The original recipe calls for a larger than normal loaf pan, so I figured I would scale the 16 oz currants to one box. I crunched the numbers and worked out well.

When I first baked the cake I replaced the butter for oil thinking that it would be dense enough to handle the softer texture. I added some baking soda to the mix for some rise, as the original recipe didn’t. And finally I replaced the eggs with aquafaba since the cake was light in color and I wanted to keep it flax fleck free. As I started to mix the aquafaba to the sugar-oil mix, I noticed it acting very similar to a pound cake. It made me wonder if I could skip the leavening agent all together.

So the second time making the cake was when I scaled down the size, and baked like a normal pound cake. I was VERY nervous. But it worked! Surprising I know! The photos might look like the cake is under baked, and it might of been just a smidge. I think I over soaked the currants (I did it overnight) making the cake a little too moist. But the texture was definitely cooked!

So here are some important notes about the ingredients. You will want a nice white wine. Pick something you would drink, but still have it be on the lower end of cost. I omitted the mace from the recipe, but it should traditionally be in there. I also used Earth Balance and specified it in the recipe. It worked for this, but I can not promise how homemade butters would work.

The oven is also on low and slow! This cake takes over 2 hours to bake! Plus 2 hours of soaking! This is going to take a loooong time to make, but very hands off. I hope this doesn’t scare off too many people, because this does make a great cake for the holiday season. One that might get people to question what they think of a “fruit cake.”

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2018 Tags: 1650-1799, American Cake Off, American Cakes, booze, currants, fruit cake, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2018, white wine

5 comments

American Cakes: Election Cake

November 6, 2017

I did a lot of debating if I should save this recipe till next Vegan MOFO or not. I do want to continue my Vegan MOFO theme of American Cake Off for 2018, but this one I wanted to post this year. Why? THERE ARE STILL ELECTIONS GOING ON IN THE UNITED STATES!

Some of these elections are big deals. In New Jersey we are voting for a new governor (thank god), state legislator, and freeholder. And in my case, I have the questions to vote on, and people who are running locally for the board of education. This election is a pretty big deal as it can get more democrats into the senate, possibly getting the majority.

Part of the reason why there isn’t much coverage about the election is because it really depends on where you live. I am voting for some stuff that no one else is voting on outside of my town. There are lots of important mayor elections, and not every state even has an election going on.

So let’s talk about this election cake! I first read about it in American Cakes, but there isn’t a recipe. Perhaps it is because most people steer away from fruit cakes, or because the author didn’t find it unique enough compared to other recipes? Not sure. But I was very excited about the idea.

Back before women could vote- ladies would slave away in the kitchen baking cakes. They would use this as a way to encourage men to go out and vote. And boy did the original recipes feed many men. An original recipe called for thirty quarts flour, ten pounds butter, fourteen pounds sugar, twelve pounds raisins, and my favorites one pint wine and one quart brandy. This might make your jaw drop but this was intended to feed MANY people.

Sourced from Bon Appetit’s article about Election Cakes

For the 2016 presidential election OWL Bakery decided to start a campaign calls #MakeAmericaCakeAgain. The bakery posted a recipe on Google Docs for anyone to make, but sold the cake in their stores. Proceeds went to League of Women Voters, with many other bakeries across the USA contributing. There is already a vegan version of the cake out there by Yum Universe. But I don’t know about it, it is gluten free but uses bourbon to soak the fruit. Then she has the audacity to recommend tequila or gin to soak the fruit to make it 100% gluten free?! 1) not all gin are gluten free, and 2) what about wine based spirits?

The other problem with the OWL and Yum Universe recipes is that the cake needs the starter to go overnight. That is a lot of time. But I found a recipe from Food52 that only has your starter go for 3 hours. That is a lot more manageable, and the recipe looks a lot less scary in comparison.

This recipe isn’t perfect. I wish I tried using only oil in the recipe, but I had a lot of little bits of shortening and an almost empty butter container in the fridge, so I used a mix of the three. I also didn’t have sherry wine or brandy, so I used amaretto and marsala. You can use whatever you want, but I recommend something sweet. So if you aren’t using booze, maybe a juice, kombucha, sweetened tea, whatever. Think about what flavors will go with figs, raisins, and the spices.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe Tags: 1650-1799, alcohol, amaretto, American Cake Off, booze, cake, dessert, election cake, elections, figs, marsala, politics

7 comments

Vegan MOFO 2017: The Cowboy Cake

October 19, 2017

Rations, rations, rations. That is what motivates people to cut out eggs and dairy from their cakes. So I have yet another cake to share that was already vegan. Naturally I made some modifications, but let’s start with the history.

Many kids in America has played The Oregon Trail. I have not. But if you haven’t played it, the premise was pretty easy. It was a computer game where you traveled across the United States on the Oregon Trail to get to the west. On the REAL Oregon trail, you probably would of made this cake. Or if you were traveling anywhere really, whether you were a cowboy or relocating. Most everything in this recipe is shelf stable, making it great for most pioneers.

The recipe may look familiar with other cakes- boiled raisin cake, war cake, depression cake, or my favorite milkless eggless butterless cake (thanks wikipedia) What makes this version pretty awesome is that you don’t dirty up too many dishes. Unlike the Wacky Cake, which tries to only use one pan, this one really isn’t mess when mixing the batter. Sure you will have to dirty up another small pot, and something to drain the raisins, but overall it is a pretty easy clean up

Now I could of just made the recipe line by line, but I thought this could use some jazzing up. First I stuck with raisins, but you can easily swap out any other dried fruit. The recipe even suggests it. Just chop up any large fruit, and just follow the recipe.

But I thought I would use a little booze in the recipe. I thought and thought about what kind- and finally settled on a gose beer (pronounced go-suh). A Gose is a sour beer originating in Germany. It is spiced with coriander, and is known to be salty. It gets it’s name since it originally was brewed in the town Goslar. The style almost disappeared in obscurity, but it has recently become really popular since the rise of sour beers.

Can’t find a gose beer? Any sour beer will work just fine. If you don’t know a lot about beer, just ask someone who is working at the liquor store or look for any bottle with sour, lambic, or wild ale. If you choose just a sour beer (or any type of sour juice) remember to add a pinch of salt, gose beers are naturally salty.

I used Sixpoint Jammer. It is a gose that is vegan and American, so I like that. I was lucky enough to buy the can individually from Total Wines and More, but you can also see if you can order it online. But remember, this isn’t the ONLY vegan gose out there. There are tons, and it might even be from the country you live in.

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Posted by Jennifer in Beer, Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2017 Tags: 1800-1869, American Cake Off, beer, booze, cake, cowboy cake, gose, raisins, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2017

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Vegan MOFO 2017: Chocolate Sauerkraut Cake

October 18, 2017

“Why can’t you make normal cakes?” asks my husband. Duh- that would be boring. I am very much that type of person who hears about something weird and crazy and instead of thinking “that sounds gross, I should stay away” I think “my god, that sounds gross! there must be something to it!” I’ve ordered a mustard cocktail, miso ice cream, and spicy pepper ice cream. This is one of those instances- sauerkraut? In a cake?

Another appeal of this cake is that it has Pennsylvania Dutch roots. I probably should make a post of all the regional recipes featured on this blog. And this isn’t the only Pennsylvanian dutch recipe featured in the book. There the shoofly pie, which pushes the definition of a cake (and a pie) and the Moravian Sugar Cake, which sadly I know I will not have anytime to attempt (it uses yeast.)

Since it is National Chocolate Cupcake Day, here is a little fun chocolate cake history. It took quite sometime for bakers to add chocolate to their sweets. Originally chocolate was viewed as a medicine, and was more focused in Europe for melting in milk, or making milk chocolate bars. I think you can hear more about this evolution from Stuff You Missed in History Class But slowly it made it’s way in a cookbook in a very small amount in a spiced cake. Sarah Roerer takes the credit for pouring melted chocolate into a cake, to make a “healthy” cake. Do you think we will be laughing about how we make “superfood” desserts by adding spirulina and maca to our cakes in the future?

And there may be many of you wondering “what’s up with Devil’s Food Cake?” This is something I’ve been wondering for a LONG time as a child. According to Wikipedia and American Cakes– not much. Early recipes used a lot of different things in the batter- sour milk, heavy cream, sour cream, baking powder, baking soda, white sugar, brown sugar, melted chocolate, cocoa powder, spices, and even mashed potatoes. Confusing huh? Make things even more confusing not all Devil’s Food cakes has the same frosting. What can be agreed on that Devil’s Food Cake is a fun name next to the other American classic- Angel’s Food Cake. And in general, there’s more chocolate than normal so the cake is super rich and dark.

The recipe in American Cakes calls for chocolate sour cream frosting. The recipe reminded me of the simple chocolate mousse recipes I’ve seen using silken tofu. I would make my own sour cream from silken tofu anyways, so I just used the Chocolate Mousse from The Post Punk Kitchen (from the Cupcakes Take Over the World cookbook) Depending on how you like the frosting you can halve the recipe. I use maybe 60% of the recipe, but it is plausible to use the whole thing.

Just like the book, I used canned sauerkraut. It worked out fine, but I think you would probably get dreamier texture by using homemade or “fresher” sauerkraut. I normally buy jarred sauerkraut but I didn’t have two cups. If you don’t really like sauerkraut but want to give this recipe a go, I suggest sticking with canned. It will have exactly enough you need.

this is what happens when you try and take photos for the blog with a kid… they just want to see what is going on.

Like any cake recipe this really isn’t “healthy.” But it does have a fair amount of iron and vitamin c (from the sauerkraut and cocoa powder). So I guess if you are a menstruating pirate- this will help fight anemia and scurvy! If you are a fretful parent who is thinking about making a fruit cake for their baby’s first birthday, this one isn’t the worst. You can cut down on the salt and sugar. And the frosting is made with tofu so you get a little bonus protein!

That being said, I am all for just straight up enjoying your cake. I liked the taste, and I think I would just chop the sauerkraut more in the future. It is super moist and easy to make. Oh and a little extra fiber. What is there not to like?

he eventually got that cake

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo 2017 Tags: 1870-1899, American Cake Off, chocolate, chocolate cake, pennsylvania dutch, sauerkraut, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2017

7 comments

Vegan MOFO 2017: Applesauce Cake

October 4, 2017

Oh the vegan applesauce cake. You are such a staple to vegans everywhere. Just a quick search of the words vegan applesauce and cake comes up with so many pinterest pins. I’ve read about people in Europe complain about us damned American bakers who keep putting applesauce in our baked goods, and I remember reading in How It All Vegan that applesauce is a great way to replace eggs.

I was a little surprised to see how American this cake is. Applesauce has been put into cakes in the United States back in Colonial New England. But it wasn’t until the depression era that it became a popular ingredient. Now you may be thinking- “I know there are apples in cakes in Europe,” but they are often chopped apples, or layered in the cake. Folding in smashed up apples into a batter is pretty American. There is even a national applesauce cake day in the United States on June 6th. Side note today is national vodka and national taco day. That just seems like such a mistake waiting to happen.

So what about THIS recipe? Well, according to American Cakes, this cake was popular for many reasons. First there was World War I, then the depression, then World War II. Ouch. This particular recipe uses applesauce both as a fat replacement and an egg replacement. It felt like this cake could pop up on some super healthy “clean” food blog, but it is just really economical.

Oddly I have not used applesauce that often in baking. I guess mostly because I don’t really like eating applesauce. Sure I loved it as a kid, but not so much as an adult. Luckily I baked this cake twice so I used up most of the jar. The first time making it I thought it was too sweet. But after a day the sweetness mellows out. I baked it a second time with less sugar, and oil instead of margarine. I posted the recipe with the original amount of sugar but you can easily drop it to 3/4 cup of sugar if you like things not very sweet.

I took the second cake to my Grandmother’s who loved the cake. She also couldn’t get over the fact that you could bake without butter or eggs. I never fully understood why people say this, but I guess I always baked enough to know that not all recipes use butter or eggs. Then my Mother started to confuse my Grandma about how you can use shortening or lard in a recipe. Now she will make me a cake out of lard thinking it is vegan. But she asked for this recipe, and I will happily share. It right up her ally- insanely easy to make.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2017 Tags: 1917-1945, American Cake Off, applesauce, applesauce cake, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2017

8 comments

Vegan MOFO 2017: The Wacky Cake

October 1, 2017

Welcome to Vegan MOFO 2017! Yey! This year I’ve got this! lol nope, I don’t. I am crazy to think I can balance a baby and a blog post each day. But I love Vegan MOFO, so whatever. I’m going to try and make it work.

This year I decided to try and do a theme. Way back in March I wanted to try and bake cakes from my cookbook American Cakes. I thought I would do a cake a month or so… and I got only one done. In my defense I tried several different cakes, but haven’t found the perfect veganized version. Since it has taken me so long, I decided to make it be my theme for Vegan MOFO- Historical Vegnaized American Cakes! If you want to read more about my mission, check out the original post.

KIND-OF working with the weekly themes, this week is Changing Vegan Perceptions. So I thought I would pick recipes that are vegan to begin with or near vegan. Yes, vegan baking is historical. Who knew? There are actually quite a few recipes that needed little to no modifications in the book- enter the Wacky Cake.

There are lots of stories surrounding this cake. Some people say it came about from the depression since butter and eggs were so readily available. But it seems more likely it would of been made during World War II because of rations. But author Anne Byrn focuses on the popularity of this cake as an “emergency dessert.”

This concept cracks me up, but is a very real social requirement of the 50s. You must be prepared to feed a guest at any moment! My boss talks about how guests would show up, and there was routine that the dinner portion would shave down just a little for everyone to make up for the extra table setting. Then his Mom would cook up some potatoes to make up for plate space. Since this recipe didn’t have any perishable items, it made it easy to whip up. Heck I made the whole cake and topping in one nap time (aka less than an hour)

The original recipe is suppose to be made in just the cake pan. You sift the flour, create little holes in the flour, and fill them with the liquids. Mix all together and bake. I found this to be a pain in the butt, and it didn’t mix all the way. So I just mixed it all together in my kitchen-aid mixer and got much better results.

At first I felt a little odd making this cake without making any modifications, but after a quick search- I found that this cake is ALL OVER THE PLACE. Heck, even when reading the recipe I thought “this looks like the recipe my Mother in Law made..” Yup- it was. She used the recipe from Mayim Bialik’s cookbook, she even makes it on Rachael Ray. So I felt a lot less weird about posting this recipe. I did try and keep the caramel topping in the book. I personally love it. I even tried to make it a little more “shelf stable” by using coconut oil instead of margarine. But you can use whatever frosting you want- or just some powder sugar.

And if you are wondering why it took me so long to post a recipe that I didn’t really alter? Well, it is because I kept not getting very good photos. First time making it, I didn’t bother with photos, for whatever the reason. Then the second time I made it for a party and someone cut tiny little squares and they just weren’t very photogenic. Then I made it again, which annoyed my husband (this isn’t his favorite cake) and I kind-of over cooked the caramel. *sigh* but I HAD to get the photos this time. So there you have it. Three cakes in total. Yikes.

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Posted by Jennifer in Recipe, Vegan Mofo, Vegan Mofo 2017 Tags: 1946-1962, American Cake Off, cake, caramel, chocolate cake, Vegan MOFO, vegan mofo 2017, wacky cake