Chocolate Depression Cake - Wacky Cake - Retro Recipe Box (2024)

FAQs

What was depression cake made of? ›

This simple chocolate cake is 'wacky' because it's mixed in the pan (instead of a bowl) and contains no eggs or milk, two ingredients that are considered essential to most cakes. Yet, despite these 'wacky' differences, the cake is a delicious dessert.

An Elvis Presley cake is a single-layer classic yellow cake that's topped with a pineapple glaze. Much like a poke cake, the syrup and juices of the pineapple will seep into the cake through fork holes, resulting in a decadent, ultra-moist cake.

There are a few theories as to how it got its name. One, it's the decadent counterpart to angel food cake. Two, it's sinfully delicious. Finally, devil's food cake came about during a time when food that was spicy, rich, or dark was described as deviled, like deviled ham and deviled eggs.

Wacky cake, also called crazy cake, Joe cake, wowie cake, and WW II cake, is a spongy, cocoa-based cake. It is unique in that unlike many pastries and desserts, no eggs, butter or milk are used to make the cake batter.

When vinegar reacts with baking soda, it creates carbon dioxide bubbles, which act as leavening agents. So as the batter bakes, these tiny bubbles expand, causing the cake to rise and giving it that light, airy texture we all love.

Use milk instead of water

Most box cake recipes will tell you to add water to the mix. Instead, try adding milk using the same proportions. This will make the cake richer and creamier because it ups the fat content. You can even use buttermilk here for a pleasant tang.

A small amount will be fine, but if you try to add enough to make it significantly chocolate flavored, you'll throw off both the wet/dry ratio and the acid chemistry of the mix, and probably end up with an unsatisfactory cake.

Enhance With Extracts

Pure vanilla extract and pure almond extract are great options, but you could also try lemon extract or orange extract paired with fresh citrus zest. Although more expensive, vanilla bean paste or fresh vanilla beans will provide even richer flavor to a boxed mix.

They are actual miniature flavored cakes. They may look like a bundt, but the texture is much different than a traditional bundt cake.

What is Viking cake? ›

The Kransekager. Also referred to as a Kransekake or a Viking Wedding Cake, this famous cake resembles a small tower built of 15 rings of pastry made from almond paste and sugar. Traditionally there is a bottle of Cherry Kirsch or wine inside the rings which guests enjoy with a piece of the cake.

Amongst the most common ingredients in medieval cake baking were honey, fruit, nuts, spices and cheese. These are all of course ingredients that we still love to see in our cake baking today. Nice to see that some things haven't really changed.

The cakes are usually filled with allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger or other sweet spices, raisins or currants, and before baking are topped with the mark of a cross to signify that these were alms.

In 17th century England and New England, it was believed that a "witch's cake" had the power to reveal whether witchcraft was afflicting a person with symptoms of illness. Such a cake or biscuit was made with rye flour and the urine of the afflicted person. The cake was then fed to a dog.

Wacky cake may have been created as the result of rationing during World War II, when milk and eggs were scarce. Active ingredients in wacky cake include flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, vegetable oil, white vinegar, salt and vanilla extract.