THE GREAT DEPRESSION CHOCOLATE CAKE

Almost 90 years ago, during the Great Depression, home cooks still needed birthday cakes and holiday desserts to bring some sort of sweetness to hard times.  Traditional cake making ingredients, butter, eggs, milk, were scarce and expensive.  So good cooks did what they’ve always done—used what they had on hand.  And some of us are still baking this really good chocolate cake today.

Cake:

• 1 cup sugar
• 1 ½ cups flour
• 3 tblsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/3 cup plus 1 tsp vegetable oil
• 1 cup cold coffee

Oil an 8×8 baking pan and pre-heat oven to 350’.  Mix dry ingredients in bowl and whisk well to combine.  Make well in center of dry ingredients and add oil, then vinegar, then vanilla.  Pour coffee over all and stir well until batter is smooth and lump free.  Pour into prepared pan and bake for about 35 minutes at 350’—until toothpick in center of cake comes out clean. 

Cool on a rack—then frost, or just dust with confectioners sugar.  Use your own frosting recipe, a ready-made frosting, or the recipe below.

Chocolate Frosting:

Using a hand mixer, combine 3 tblsps softened butter, 3 tblsps unsweetened cocoa powder, 1 tblsp honey, 1 tsp vanilla, and 1 cup confectioners sugar.  Very slowly add up to 3 tblsp milk or half-and-half, until frosting is spreadable.

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