Light Chocolate Cake without butter, without eggs, without milk and without yeast
This post is also available in Italiano
Among the recipes most appreciated by Labna readers, there are always those that I call “without anything”: without milk, without butter, without eggs, without flour, without this and without that … It seems that most of my readers lives with some type of food restriction, far beyond those I abide to imposed by the Jewish faith.
Thus this week I decided to try one of those cakes “without this and that” which I had saved for some time, an American dessert called Wacky Cake, whose recipe dates back to the times of the Great Depression. It is a soft and light cocoa flavored cake, strictly free from dairy products and eggs, not too sweet, perfect for vegans, but also for those who, after the holidays, have decided to watch to their waistline.
A second advantage of this cake is the belonging to another category of recipes that I truly love: not only is it “without anything”, in fact, it also a “mix everything” cake, that is, easy to prepare within a few minutes by mixing all the ingredients rather randomly, with a spoon, in a single bowl. Indeed, I am not exaggerating when I tell you that if you are particularly lazy, you can even mix all the ingredients already inside a disposable cake mold instead of in a bowl, so when you are done, you will only have one spoon to wash!
At this point I would say that you have no excuse: get the ingredients and try it!
Light Chocolate Cake without butter, without eggs, without milk and without yeast
Ingredients
- 180 g of 00 flour or whole wheat flour *
- 3 heaping tablespoons of unsweetened cocoa
- 200 g of sugar
- 1 teaspoon of baking soda
- 1 pinch of salt
- 1 heaping tablespoon of white wine vinegar
- 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
- 5 tablespoons of sunflower or peanut oil
- 235 ml of water
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C and cover a round or square cake pan with parchment paper (I have not tried a plumcake mold, thus I do not recommend it, while I know for a fact that you can use muffin molds if you prefer to make single-serve cakes).
- In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients, then make a well in the middle and pour the vinegar, vanilla extract, and oil.
- Pour the water evenly throughout the bowl, even outside the well, and mix well with a spoon, until obtaining a smooth and thick creamy batter, without lumps.
- Transfer the cake batter into the previously prepared pan, and cook in the preheated oven for 35 minutes. If you are not sure whether it is done, test it with a toothpick, but do not over-bake the cake, otherwise it will be too dry.
(*) for our friends with Celiac disease: I tried making this cake with a gluten-free, prepared flour mix, called “Mix It” by Schär, and it worked perfectly