You ever wanted to spend an evening on the couch eating an entire chocolate cake with your hands? That’s what I’m doing tonight!
Happy frickin’ Valentine’s.
I first learned this recipe from my grandma. Apparently it was a thing during the Great Depression, because it doesn’t use eggs. I always wondered why it was easy to get cocoa powder, but not eggs. Funny how the problems you anticipate are not the ones that actually pop up.
Grandma had this whole lesson that went with the recipe, about how all the ingredients taste pretty bad on their own (except sugar, obviously). Cooking oil is nasty, flour is tasteless, vinegar is…vinegar. Even cocoa powder is bitter in its raw form. When you mix it all together and bake it though, suddenly it’s a fluffy, delicious cake.
Life was like that, she’d say. All your individual experiences might be sour or bitter or dry, but when you put it all together it can be something sweet and wonderful.
Grandma probably wasn’t referring to coming home to find your boyfriend in bed with your least favorite co-worker on Valentine’s Day, but here we are.
I’m making cake.
First thing is to mix together all the dry stuff. Order isn’t super important with this particular cake so it’s perfect to make when you’re at the end of your rope and don’t care anymore.
Like me.
Go ahead and whisk together your flour, sugar, cocoa powder, and baking soda. You can add salt, or just rely on your tears.
Once your dry ingredients are all mixed, add the oil, vanilla, and water. Like I said before, you don’t need any eggs. Which is great, because apparently Greg was too busy fucking Felicia to go to the store on his way home like he said he would, so we’re out of eggs, and milk...
And wine.
Mix in the vinegar last, because its whole job is to react with the baking soda and make bubbles. That’s why you don’t need eggs, because the same reaction that you used in elementary school to make a fake volcano can also make a cake rise.
This recipe makes a nice eight or nine inch round cake, or about a dozen cupcakes. If you’re using a cake pan, be sure to butter and flour the pan before you pour the batter in so your cake doesn’t stick. The last thing anyone needs when they’re rage-baking comfort sweets is a cake that won’t come out of the goddamn pan.
I’m making mini cupcakes, because there’s no better way to down an entire cake in one sitting with minimal guilt. Maybe even less guilt than Greg felt when he threw away our relationship, but that bar is so very low.
Bake at 350 degrees. Time varies based on what you’re making. A whole cake is going to need 30 minutes. Cupcakes need 15-20 minutes. Mini cupcakes only need about 12 minutes.
That’s another advantage to the mini cupcakes. Less waiting.
I just wasted two years of my life on some loser who thought he had time for a quickie between work and our special date night. I'm not waiting an extra five minutes for chocolate cake.
This cake is pretty decent on it’s own, but who doesn’t like frosting? Nothing like drowning your sorrows in sugar, after all.
I’m decorating my cupcakes with some simple buttercream frosting, dyed pink because today is frickin’ Valentine’s. I’m even going to toss in some sprinkles, why the hell not? Maybe I’ll grind all of these into a pint of ice cream later, who knows? It doesn’t sound like a half bad idea right now. You know, you do you.
We have rum somewhere, I know we do. I used it to make special cider for Christmas. Back when we were happy and my family kept asking leading questions about our future plans.
Anyway, enjoy Grandma’s recipe. Remember, life is full of individual ingredients that taste awful separately…but at least there’s cake.
Happy Valentine’s.
Grandma’s Crazy Cake
Ingredients:
1 ½ cups flour
1 cup white sugar
¼ cup cocoa powder
1 tsp baking soda
¼ tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup vegetable oil
1 TBSP vinegar
1 cup water
Directions:
About the Creator
Rena
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