Vegan Cake Review: Wacky!

January 12, 2011

I got an email from my mom the yesterday saying she was going to wait to hear from me the verdict on the Vegan Orange Sticky Cake before giving it a try.

Um, oops! I forgot to let you know how it turned out!



Well, it's deadly. How's that for a review?

Really, though, there's no need to be scared of the vegan factor with the cake. It turns out it's just a Wacky Cake. Wacky cakes were a kind of cake common in the Depression Era because they didn't use eggs and butter, which were prohibitively expensive. Instead, they used cheap old baking soda and vinegar to give the cake lift. Pretty tricky!

My mother in law is nearly famous (at least among my husband's friends) for her chocolate wacky cake. I had no idea until I was researching for this post that it wasn't just her wacky name for the cake, that it's an actual category of cake. See? It has its own category. Not so scary.

The only suggestion I would make if you try the Vegan Orange Sticky Cake is to make sure you grease the sides of the cake pan before you bake it. I even did the whole thing with the parchment paper on the bottom but forgot the sides and one of the cakes did not look so hot.

The cake bakes quite quickly, so keep an eye on it. Might not want to go help your brother-in-law master the SAT for an hour and nearly forget about it.

And want to know one last secret? I un-Vegan'd it in the end. I didn't have marmalade for the glaze, so I made a regular vanilla frosting (with butter! gasp!) and topped it with some pretty confetti sprinkles. Totally yum. Okay, now go on. Make it. Quit being a wimp!

Here's my recipe for regular Vanilla Frosting:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
4-5 cups powdered (confectioner's or icing) sugar

With a mixer, whip up the softened butter (I usually put it in the microwave for 5-10 seconds to soften it up) so it's not lumpy. Then add about a cup of powdered sugar and beat that together. Add the milk a couple tablespoons of the milk and another cup of sugar and beat together. Then add the vanilla extract and beat that in. Now you just want to add enough sugar so that you either have enough icing or you have the consistency you want. Just don't go adding too much liquid at once - a little goes a long way.

Sometimes I make this icing cream cheese icing by adding cream cheese and subtracting some of the butter - great for carrot cake!

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Photo Note: Wouldn't it be great if I had a cute little photo of the Vegan Orange Sticky Cake I made to prove I actually made it? I totally agree. I know it would be way more fun and satisfying for everyone if I would post more photos of what I actually do bake, but I'm a bit worried that the photos won't do the food justice and then you'll never make the recipes I suggest!

My excuse mostly boils down to needing to upgrade my camera to something that can deal with the *extremely* low light in our house (heck, in Ireland in general!). Fingers crossed that upgrade will happen in the next few weeks and you'll see a lot more of my own photos on this blog.