Before today, I had never heard of depression cake. This afternoon one of my Facebook friends posted that her daughter made a depression cake and I assumed that meant her daughter made a cake because she was depressed! Nope. Apparently, it’s a cake recipe that uses no butter, eggs or milk, so it was affordable even during the depression! My daughter just had to try it, so we got on Pinterest, found a recipe and whipped it up! I adapted my buttermilk brownie frosting recipe for this because it’s simple, inexpensive ingredients that I always have on hand. The links for the frosting in the recipe I found included evaporated milk and chocolate chips or chilled coconut milk and chocolate chips. I found mine to be much simpler!
Start by greasing your pan, which I neglected to do. *gasp* Combine flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt and whisk until well mixed.
Make 3 wells and put oil in one, vinegar in one, vanilla in one.
Pour water over the top and whisk until combined.
Bake at 350 degrees for 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
In the last 5 min or so that it’s in the oven, bring half and half, butter, salt and cocoa powder to a boil.
Add powdered sugar and whisk until well combined.
Pour over hot cake as soon as it comes out of the oven.
Cool and enjoy!
If you mix it in a separate bowl, the cake pan will be prettier, but mixing it this way makes it super easy even for a 9 year old — bonus, they can lick the whisk since it’s egg free!
This was yummy! I have to say that the texture was different, but not bad and so very easy to make. Let me know what you think!
| Cook Time | 35 minutes |
| Servings |
8x8 pan
|
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon white vinegar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 5 Tablespoons vegetable oil
- 1 cup water
- FOR FROSTING
- 1 Tablespoon cocoa powder
- 2 Tablespoons butter
- 2 Tablespoons half and half
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 pinch salt
Ingredients
|
|
- Mix first 5 ingredients in greased 8x8 pan.
- When well whisked, make 3 wells. Put vinegar in one, vanilla in one, oil in one. Pour water over top and whisk.
- Bake in 350 degree oven for 35 min, until toothpick inserted in middle comes out clean.
- 5 minutes before it finishes baking, mix butter, half and half, salt and cocoa powder in pan.
- Bring just to the boil, remove from heat and add powdered sugar. Mix well. Add vanilla.
- Pour over cake while piping hot. Cool and serve.