I love making all sorts of cake, whether they are accidentally vegan like my Oat Flour Cake, Sugar-Free Cake, 2-Ingredient No-Bake Chocolate Cake, or Protein Cake or if they are vegan versions of the classics, like my Vegan Bundt Cake, Vegan Christmas Cake, or Vegan Coffee Cake. This crazy chocolate cake is from the first category, a delicious, accidentally vegan cake. You’ll see below that I’ve perfected the method to make it absolutely no-fail every time. Crazy Cakes, also known as wacky cakes, are easy cake recipes made with pantry ingredients – nothing fresh from the fridge. Also known as depression cake recipes, this was first created during World War II when eggs and milk were scarce. Nowadays, crazy cakes are popular on the vegan diet, and busy days to fix a quick cake craving with very simple ingredients and minimal dishwashing! A crazy cake recipe is naturally:
Dairy-free Egg-free Vegan
Ingredients and Substitutions
Below, I listed the basic ingredients and substitutions available to make this crazy cake recipe with gluten-free, sugar-free, or oil-free foodies.
Flour – The classic crazy cake recipe uses white flour. I recommend unbleached white wheat flour or spelt flour simply because they are more nourishing. Also, the recipe works very well with all-purpose gluten-free flour. Other healthier flour options are spelt flour or oat flour. However, if you are using oat flour, then the texture will be less moist, and you will have to use sugar to keep the texture right. Xylitol or erythritol won’t work with oat flour. Sugar – White sugar will work very well, but I recommend unrefined cane sugar or a sugar-free crystal sweetener like erythritol or xylitol to make the cake sugar-free. Unsweetened Cocoa Powder – Sweetened cocoa powder will work, but the cake will be overly sweet, so it’s not recommended. Baking Soda – or double the amount if you want to use baking powder Oil – Canola oil or light olive oil works the best. I love olive oil to decrease the saturated fat in the cake recipe. Other options are melted coconut oil or avocado oil. For an oil-free option, replace oil with the same amount of unsweetened apple sauce. Vinegar – Apple cider vinegar is my healthy choice, but any vinegar or lemon juice would work too.
How To Make A Crazy Chocolate Cake
There’s always a day when you crave a deliciously moist chocolate cake, but you don’t feel like spending hours washing the dishes or baking. So this chocolate crazy cake is very handy for those days.
Expert Tips for a Perfect Cake
It’s a no-bowl recipe since you can simply mix all the ingredients directly into the baking dish! There are two baking dish options for this recipe, depending on what you want, serving the cake in the pan or unmolding it and serving it on a serving plate.
Ceramic/glass baking pan – this is the best option if you want to serve the cake directly from the pan. Regular cake pan – in this case, I like to lay a piece of parchment paper at the bottom of the pan. To prevent the piece of paper from moving, I grease it with oil on both sides. This way, it perfectly adheres to the pan, and the batter doesn’t leak under the paper when you beat the batter into the pan. This pan is great if you want to unmold the cake and serve it on a cake stand or plate.
Serving
This crazy cake is delicious on it’s own, but it can be super-charged with some of the toppings below:
Frosting: like my Protein Powder Frosting, Cashew Frosting, or Vegan Chocolate Frosting. Whipped Cream: like my Vegan Whipped Cream or Vegan Coconut Cream Frosting. Fresh Fruits: strawberries, blueberries, or raspberries. Nut Butter: Drizzle your favorite peanut butter, cashew butter, or sunflower seed butter.
More Chocolate Baking Recipes
If you love egg-free chocolate cakes, brownies, and bars, I have a few more easy chocolate recipes for you to try.
