Vegan Cake!

Thank you for hanging on while I managed to pass my classes this quarter. Now, back to your regularly scheduled postings. In fact, as a holiday gift, I'll be posting four times this week (most having to do with food) to make up for the weeks I missed.

One of my absolute favorite things about the holidays is food. I love food, I love making food, and I love exchanging food with friends. Since I'm in college and have a minimal budget, I'm planning to make a lot of my gifts this year. I'm making honey cleanser for some, but in general one can never go wrong with homemade goodies, as a hostess gift or as a gift in itself.

I made this cake this week, and in making it realized something - it's vegan. Not just vegetarian, vegan. I've been making it for years and it's one of the first things I learned how to make. It's great as cupcakes, and it's basically foolproof. It comes out moist and not too dense, but not too fluffy.

Vegan Chocolate "Wacky" Cake:
Column A                  Column B

 1.5 c flour                   1 c water

 1 c sugar                    1/4 c olive oil

 1/4 c cocoa                1 Tbsp white vinegar

 1 tsp baking soda       1/2 tsp vanilla

 1/2 tsp salt

Green Baking Directions:
Don't preheat your oven. Grease a 8-inch cake pan. 

Start by mixing all the ingredients in column A. Once they're roughly mixed, make a well in the center. Pour all of the ingredients from column B into the center. Mix the ingredients thoroughly. Pour into the cake pan.
Turn on your oven to 350 degrees F. Bake 30 minutes, then turn off the oven and let it bake in the residual heat for another 5 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
You may need to readjust this "turn off time", which saves either electricity or gas, depending on your ambient temperature.

Standard Baking Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease a 8-inch cake pan. 

Follow above instructions, but bake as normal for 30-35 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. 

Try not to eat them all at once, okay?