I fail to understand why it is easier to shop for and store box cake mix when you still have to round up and add in a variety of wet ingredients. What is so hard about dumping a few dry ingredients into one bowl and some wet ones in another and stirring together? And your friend FLIP OUT when you make them any kind of scratch cake! Make people love you with a “homemade” birthday cake in just about 7 minutes of time!

This made the rounds from back door to back door back in the 50′s and then a friend of mine reinvented it when her brother brought her some terrific cocoa from Holland. It is totally forgiving and you can mess around with it endlessly. Reduce the water and add some jam. Substitute some of that going off sweet fruit wine languishing in the frig for some or all of the water. Try using walnut oil instead of olive oil. Leave out the cocoa for a plain cake to serve with berries.

I make this so often that I have quantities for both a 10″ round and and 8″ round cake pans in columns-the formatting is a little messed up so read and copy with care!
Chocolate Vinegar Cake for the New Millennium
10″ 8″ inch cake pan

2¼ 1½ cups flour
1-1¼ ¾ cup sugar
1/3 ¼ cup cocoa
1½ 1 tsp baking soda
½ ½ tsp salt

1½ 1 Tbl balsamic vinegar
1½ 1 tsp vanilla
1/3 ¼ cup olive oil
1½ 1 lukewarm water (or sweet wine)

Prep pan by spraying with spray oil and then sprinkle with sugar and cocoa to keep cake from sticking and give the cake a sweet crust. (traditional flour works too and usually just the spray oil is enough)
Stir dry ingredients together
Stir liquid ingredients together
Add liquid ingredients to dry ingredients
Stir briefly together until just mixed (muffin method)

Bake 350 for 25-30 minutes
For crustier top
Bake at 350 for 5 minutes and then increase oven heat to 375 for 20 minutes.
Serve warm with ice cream
Prep all the ingredients in two bowls ahead of time and stir together quickly and pop into oven as you serve dinner to have warm, freshly baked cake for dessert.

The following is quoted from Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill, by Udo Erasmus:

“Boiling is less destructive of oils than frying because the temperature goes only to 100*C (212*F). Even the most sensitive, EFA-rich oils can be used in cooked grains and on steamed vegetables without deterioration.
Baking fits between safe boiling with water and unsafe frying. The temperature of baking pan and crust gets very high, damaging (browning) molecules of oils, starches, and proteins. Butter or tropical fat should be used to line baking pans and to brush the top of what you are baking. The temperature inside the bread being baked goes up to only just above boiling – perhaps 116*C (240*F) – and the inside of bread is also protected from air and from light.
The inside of ‘baked’ bread is actually steamed at an acceptable temperature for even the more sensitive oils.”
.-= Rachel R.´s last blog ..Getting to Know the Neighbors? =-.