Sunday, September 07, 2008

Favourite chocolate cake



I've been trying to figure out why I have such an emotional response to Sarah Palin (you know, besides the part where she thinks I should be dead....) and I'm still puzzling over it. I'm getting there, I think.

I'm getting nowhere writing about Georgia. Maybe tomorrow. So apropos of Marie Antoinette, I've decided to eat cake instead. Or be a peasant. Or whatever.

The picture above is the one I baked for Kaz on his birthday.

It is a traditional oil cake, invented many years ago when money was scarce and eggs and milk were expensive. Nowadays, it's a yummy and moist alternative for the lactose intolerant like me, or if someone has an egg allergy.

Chocolate Cake

(fits an 8 inch square or round pan, double the recipe for a 9 inch by 13 inch pan)

I don't know if cake flour or all-purpose flour is better---there is a big smudge on the hand-written page, so that is information lost to time. I personally always use Fry's cocoa, but I suppose any would do.

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Sift or mix these ingredients with a fork into an ungreased pan. I line mine with parchment paper.

Make three holes in the pile of dry ingredients.

Now, in each hole, place one of these:

1/3 cup of salad oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Pour one cup of of cold water over all, and mix well with a fork. This is the fun part where the baking soda and vinegar meet and it looks like a volcano!

Bake 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Cool and frost.

6 comments:

  1. This recipe is so old that I just realized that I left the word salad oil and it should say vegetable oil, like canola or olive (Bertolli's light tasting is a good one).

    Salad oil...ahh those were the days.

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  2. OMG This is my Wacky Cake recipe from my 7th grade Home Ec class! Cool!
    Rooth

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  3. *drool* I have developed a mean sweet tooth which I have NEVER EVER had before in my life! When I was a kid I could easily walk away from candies and sweets. But now... things have changed, let me tell you.

    This cake looks delicious.

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  4. awesome! I must try this, it looks delish.
    You crack me up all nostalgic for times before we were born.

    As for Palin, I think, what mostly gets you is that she, like so many other women take a healthy pregnancy for granted. You or me, we get on a plane in labour and we, and the baby are dead. Her? Yeah its all fine.
    Maybe its more than that, but for me, that's the part that bugs me. Not other peoples good luck, but their assumption that they deserve it.

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  5. Chocolate cake is tons better than the whole Palin misery.

    And about that: I hate her hypocrisy the most. And, for example, the hypocrisy of anyone who claims she's made some kind of heroic decision in having her Down syndrome baby. If the woman is anti-abortion then there was no choice at all so there's nothing heroic about any of it.

    What would have been just a little heroic is for her to resign as governor of Alaska so that she'd have a minute here and there to actually take care of her special needs baby. But no: she carts him around like a stage prop instead. That poor baby, I shudder to think how scared he must have been by all the noise and weird lights of the RNC.

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