The first cake I learned to make is memorialized in a dog-eared compilation of my mother's favorite go-to recipes. "Cockeyed Cake," which my mom probably copied from Peg Bracken's I Hate to Cook Book, is rated in her spidery handwriting with three hearts and an "E," for "easy."
Mixed up in five minutes right in the pan, ready to eat in half an hour, the moist and chocolaty Cockeyed Cake - also known as Wacky Cake, Crazy Cake and Three-Hole Cake - was a small miracle. Not only was it easy enough for a child of 10 to put together, but it turned into cake without the help of eggs, milk or butter.
We put it together with flour, sugar, baking soda and everyday cocoa powder (Mom left out the salt), then made three grooves in the dry ingredients. Plain vegetable oil - I remember Mom called it "salad oil" - and vanilla went in the first two grooves.
Vinegar was the gee-whiz addition, fizzing with baking soda to create lift for the dessert and glee for the young baker. Water was poured over the whole mess, which we then mixed carefully to weed out the lumps.
Over the years, though, I thought of the cake more as a happy childhood memory than as something to make in my own kitchen. As I became a more "serious" cook, I was drawn to baked goods with bells and whistles: delicate cheesecakes, poundcakes with unusual spices, brownies with premium chocolate.
Fortunately, a recent request for the similar Chocolate Lush Cake in our Recipe Finder column - which prompted perhaps a dozen readers to send their Wacky Cake recipes - brought this gem back to me. Since then, I've concluded that the Wacky Cake, an invention born of war rationing and often considered a "lost recipe," is actually the perfect cake for today. If we were creating it now, we'd call it Smart Cake.
It's quick, vegan and, with everyday ingredients you'll probably find in your pantry, frugal. It's easily dressed up or down, and surprisingly adaptable to tinkering. Make it into cupcakes. Adorn it with berries and whipped cream for the Fourth of July, or double its chocolate with a decadent, equally quick vegan ganache. Kick it up with coffee, or even chipotle pepper and cinnamon. Or just serve it plain, with a tall glass of milk.
Published recipes for Wacky Cake can be traced back to the 1940s, Lynne Olver, a reference librarian, writes on her culinary history Web site, foodtimeline.org.
It was in a number of 1960s and '70s cookbooks, but then faded away for a time.
