Crazy Cake {recipe}

Sticking with the birthday theme for the week, here is one of my go to cake recipes! Its amazing and fun to make with kids (if you dont mind a little clean up afterwards!!!)

There is something very nostalgic about pulling out an old yellowed recipe-

or 

having my mom pull out the recipe & send a picture of it to me

- to make something from my childhood. 

The other day I had a major Crazy Cake hankering...my mom would make this...and her mom...and her mom's mom...

Crazy cake is a depression era recipe that became very popular because it didn't require any dairy products- which were scarce and hard to come by at the time.

I think its name comes from the fact that you mix and bake it in the same pan( which makes a CRAZY big mess...) and because the leavening is vinegar and baking soda. Probably seemed like a crazy idea to whoever first tried that combo.

 Don't worry, you can't taste the vinegar! 

INGREDIENTS: 

3 Cups Flour

2  Cups Sugar

2 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

6 tbsp cocoa

3/4 cup oil

2 tbsp vinegar

1 tbsp vanilla

2 cups water

Step 1:

Mix first 5 ingredients together in 9x13 baking dish

( so easy a 2 year old can do it!)

Step 2:

Make 3 wells in the flour mixture.

In 1st hole put oil; 

2nd hole put vinegar;

 3rd hole put vanilla.

Step 3:

Pour your 2 Cups water over this and mix gently- do not beat.

(Somehow I missed this step in photos)

Step 4

Bake at 375 for 35 mins...

while you clean up...

This is the frosting recipe that normally gets used with the cake...if you are feeling ambitious and can read my great -grandma's handwriting, I recommend it. 

(this can also be turned into fudge- or spoon fudge as my family calls it)

OR

you can use a frosting of your choice.

I used a chocolate cream cheese, since its what I had the ingredients for.

  (lighting was bad by the time the cake got frosted)

...and then we ate it

...sorry

...well not really sorry

 since it was soooooo yummy!