Oh, no you di'n't!

alternately titled: Who 'Jacked the Wacky Cake?


In a perfect world, one can eat what one wishes without weight or allergy consequences. In this world, however, one just hopes to balance the "healthy" food with the "bad for you" food and trust your body will survive.

I needed to whip up a birthday cake for a special young man -- so I took an ordinary cake & made it quite "special" for him.


My two younger sons love to get their hands on the remnants of my iced lattes. Even better is to have their own made on Saturday mornings when I make theirs an iced mocha.

That was on my mind this morning while I was starting to stir up Alec's cake. I was making Wacky Cake, but decided to "kick-it-up-a-notch"!

I started off by using whole wheat (healthy!) flour. The rest of the ingredients stayed the same except for using a little extra cocoa. As I was getting the the water portion, my "what-if" brain decided flavored water would be just as good, so I used a cup of cold leftover morning coffee to pour over. 

Then I "what iffed" a cup of chocolate chips into the mix...

Verdict will be in later this evening.

trifling with chocolate

Please Lord, never let anyone institute Chocoholics Anonymous, 'cause I don't wanna be cured!

Because I wished to show off highlight use my trifle bowl for Christmas Day dessert, I started plotting a few weeks prior what lovely ingredients would be showcased that evening. In the past I'd done raspberry & white chocolate, key lime, strawberries & cream -- even, ashamedly, a Twinkie & cherry trifle (gorgeous, by the way...) Selfishly, I decided to please myself and created a chocolate fantasy. It is chocolate cake, chocolate pudding & cocoa-rum whipped cream:

(Well, if I would've truly realized my fantasies, I'd have added chocolate chips 

and chocolate syrup...)

The cake recipe is from the Depression Era. (Can you believe this is the first time I've tried this recipe?!?) It is egg-less & milk-less. It is incredibly moist & chocolaty without being too sweet. It is called "Wacky Cake" because of the ingredients.
Sift the dry ingredients together into an 8x8 pan. (no need to spray or grease)

Make three holes in dry mixture and put vanilla in one, oil in the next, and vinegar in the last.

Pour cold water over all

and stir.

Bake in 350° oven for 25 - 30 minutes.

After the cake cooled, I cut it into squares. I crumbled about a third of them into the bottom of my dish. I topped that with a third of my pudding.

(yes - this package uses a gallon of milk & makes over 4 quarts of pudding
no - I did not make the entire package
and yes - I very much wanted to!)

Onto the pudding went my cocoa-rum layer.

(sift cocoa & XXX sugar, add to cream, whip, add rum & whip until peaks form)

I repeated this to fill the dish, reserving some of the cake for topping.

I'm linking up to Sheryl's Cast Party Wednesday.