Crazy cake
We call this Crazy Cake because ingredients like oil and vinegar seem crazy at first.
It has the advantage of being vegan (if you use soya margarine in the icing) but we make it just because it is delicious. The cake part can also be made without weighing scales, as the measurements are all in cups, tbsp or tsp. Like all my recipies it is very forgiving, so precise quantities are not required.
I will first give the ingredients and instructions for the cake, then for the icing. It makes a round cake with a top and bottom and icing in the middle and on top.
Cake ingredients
- 1.5 cups plain flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 3 tbsp cocoa
- 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
- 1 tbsp vinegar
- 5 tbsp vegetable or sunflower cooking oil
- 1 cup water
Cake instructions
- Preheat an oven at 350oC (gas mark 7-8)
- Grease and line two round baking trays (I use margarine)
- Sieve the dry ingredients together
- Stir in the liquids
- Bake for 30 minutes
- Leave to cool on wire rack
Icing ingredients
- 60g (1.5oz) margarine
- 4 tbsp cocoa
- 200g (8oz) icing sugar
- 3 tbsp hot milk
- 1 tsp vanilla essence
Icing instructions
- Melt margarine
- Blend in cocoa
- Add vanilla essence
- Alternately add small amounts of sieved icing sugar and hot milk, stirring the mixture
- Beat until smooth and thick
- Spread smoothly over top of of each cake then one on top of the other
The icing recipe usually makes more icing than you need for the middle and top of the cake. Leftover icing can be made into a lovely chocolate sauce for icecream (by adding extra hot milk).