Crazy Cake Recipe

I don't understand the bad reviews for this cake. When I make a cake, this is the one I go to all the time. I don't change the ingredients, but I DO change the method, so if anyone is interested I will describe. I grease and flour two 9in cake rounds. Sift all of the dry ingredients into a large mixing bowl. Add the wet ingredients, and stir with a spoon until it's combined. The vinegar will bubble with the baking soda.. it's supposed to. The batter will be thin, but that's normal from what I can tell. Although the recipe calls for a 13x9, when I baked it in that pan it took much longer than called for. In the two 9in rounds, 30 minutes is perfect. The cake is moist and there is ABSOLUTELY NO Vinegar taste.. AT ALL. If you want a super duper chocolatey flavor, replace 1c of the water with coffee. I know it sounds weird, but you won't taste the coffee.. only enhanced chocolate. I'm no expert, but like I said.. every time I prepare the cake with this method, it is perfect.

YUM!! the first 4 time i make it i added chocolate chips YYUMMMMM it's the best chocolate cake i've ever tasted!!!!!! i usually make half the recipe to fit in a small round pan, i also tried making it white by added cornstarch instead of cocoa powder and adding a tsp. orange zest, it was a beautiful orange cake!! Thanks sooooo much for the recipe

This recipe fails to explain the purpose of the vinegar. Vinegar reacts with the baking soda to create a moist and tender crumb. As an acid, the vinegar mixed with the baking soda releases carbon dioxide to "raise" the batter. It is important to immediately put the batter in the oven because the air bubbles can be lost over time. I suspect the negative reviews who think the flavor is "off" either did not mix/combine well, or let the batter sit too long after mixing before putting in the oven. Grease your pan ahead of time. It is best to sift the dry ingredients over whisking. Whisk the liquid ingredients in a separate bowl. Then add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and use a whisk to thoroughly combine. Pour in the mixed batter and put immediately into the oven or you will lose the bubbles formed by the vinegar reacting with the baking soda. Another step to ensure it is moist is to make it a day ahead. This cake gets more moist after several hours if you do not eat it right away. For more chocolate flavor, you may increase the unsweetened cocoa powder to 2/3 cup (instead of 1/2). And/or reduce the vegetable oil to 1/2 cup (or substitute applesauce).

This was a perfect and easy cake to make. I did make it GF, and baked it in a bundt pan. It took a bit longer to bake in the bundt pan. The taste was great, but I may play with the ingredients a little to get it to have a less gummy texture. That's not the fault of the original recipe, I added fresh strawberries to the batter, along with using a GF flour blend.

Awesome! I've made it 3 times now and it's worked beautifully each time. I use cold coffee instead of water. I've found that frosting tends to overpower the cake, so my favorite so far is to use a simple chocolate ganache. 8 ounces of cream and the same of semi-sweet chocolate chips. Heat the cream and pour over the chocolate. Whisk, whisk, whisk until glossy and pour over the cooled cake. I put it in the fridge for about a half hour to set. I love this because it's not so sweet and lets the cake shine.

I have made this recipe for over 10 years...I like to use black cold coffee in place of the water.. It's a very moist cake when done and it is topped off with peanut butter icing.

There was enough batter that we made an 8x8 cake and cupcakes! Both were delicious. I took reviewers suggestions and substituted 1/2 of the granulated sugar for brown. I mixed the dry and the wet separately before combining. It was perfect. I couldn't believe it was dairy and egg free! I'm making the second batch already(a week later). Thank you for this recipe! My husband has to go on a low iodine diet and this allows him a sweet treat!

Followed recipe but made double layer with 2x, 9" pans, upping the ingredients by ~10% by weight. Came out great! Will definitely make again and experiment with different flavors (vanilla, lemon, etc.). It's been tough finding a cake our son with milk/egg allergies can have and this one is far better than others we've tried.

This is my daughter's favorite recipe and has been for many years. When I was first given this recipe, it included a suggested topping of 1/4 cup each powdered sugar and unsweetened cocoa powder mixed well and put on the top of the fresh-from-the-oven cake so it sort of melts into cake. Much better than frosting, IMO. Delicious!

I've made this as written and it does get better the next few days after making. This last time I decided to do a gluten free low sugar version... I subbed Bob's gluten free flour along with some almond flour, used coconut oil, Swerve, and for the water used Hazelnut flavored coffee. I also added Lilly's stevia sweetened chocolate chips. It was really good and turned out perfect

Cake turned out moist ans delicious, everyone loved it. I will definitely make this again. I did however follow what another said & mixed my ingredients in a separate bowl & buttered & floured my pan.

I've made this cake at least 20 times. If you don't want chocolate, I've made it a cherry cake. A German chocolate cake, a pineapple cake, a confetti cake the possibilities are endless

This cake is the absolute Best cake! So moist, & very delish! I attribute it's fine quality to the absence of eggs, and addition of vinegar! I looked for this cake after having the military recipe similar except it fed 500! I should add i mixed in in my stand mixer same as other cakes and it was still scrumptious!

Shockingly good and moist. I experimented with halving the recipe. Reminded me of a Hostess cupcake without the filling or icing.

I made this recipe on a night where I was craving something chocolatey, but I was too lazy to go out and buy eggs. I had high hopes based on the comments. Unfortunately it wasn't as good as I'd hoped. The texture is perfect, but the taste is bland. I added a little instant coffee as another commenter suggested and chocolate chips, just to make sure it would be extra delicious. It wasn't enough to make it taste good. Besides the additions i followed the recipe to the letter. I'm not sure if maybe the cocoa powder i used just isn't good enough quality (its a supermarket brand) or if I somehow missed something. But yeah. To me it wasn't really worth the effort. Though I guess it was cool to see the chemical reaction do its magic.

Substituted stevia for suagr, melted pb choclate for the oil, and mixed flour, and it turned out a bit fudgier in texture than typical cake is! Was perfect as a healthy baked treat while waiting for payday to come in a few days, made the house warm on a rainy spring day, too!

I was a little skeptical when the directions said to put all ingredients into an ungreased pan, but followed anyway. The only addition was a tablespoon of instant coffee. It turned out moist, delicious and didn't stick to the pan either.

It was good. Changed to only 1 cup of sugar

Seriously, perfect 😱

I personally loved this recipe. Easy to make with pantry ingredients and vegan! Yes, you do have to flavor your cake a little bit. I did not use cocoa at all, but heavily spiced my cake with a gingerbread mix. Also, I used raw brown sugar instead of refined, and half flour half almond flour. It cooked longer, probably almost an hour, but came out great!!! Very flavorful and moist, I will make this recipe again!