I’ve got the craziest recipe for you guys today! But I suppose you already knew that from the title, didn’t you?
Vanilla Crazy Cake – also known as Wacky Cake or Depression Cake, doesn’t need dairy or eggs to make them.
In fact, you don’t even need to get a separate bowl dirty – you can make it right in the pan!
These cakes became popular during the Great Depression when eggs and dairy products were expensive and hard to come by. Nowadays, they’re great for people with food allergies, and everyone will love them!
All things aside, sometimes we just need a quick and delicious way to satisfy our sweet tooth and this is it!
The beauty is, you can change out ingredients or add to it as needed. Take the basis of this recipe and add sprinkles or a different flavored extract. Maybe you want to make it a fun color, you can add some food dye and truly make it fun and colorful.
Have fun making this cake and we cannot wait to see the look on your face when it’s made without those eggs and and dairy products!
What You’ll Need To Make Vanilla Crazy Cake:
1 1/2 Cups All-purpose flour
1 Cup Sugar
1 tsp Baking soda
1/2 tsp Salt
1 tsp White vinegar
5 tbsp Vegetable oil
1 Cup Water
1 1/2 tsp Pure vanilla extract
How To Make Vanilla Crazy Cake:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a greased 8″ square (or round…I prefer the round, but I’ve made this in both) baking pan.
Make 3 depressions in the dry ingredients – two small and one large. Pour the vinegar and vanilla in each of the two smaller depressions, and the vegetable oil in the large one.
Pour water over the entire thing and mix until smooth.
Bake on the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Let it cool, then top with your favorite frosting and enjoy!
Vanilla Crazy Cake
Crazy cake is made with no eggs, milk, or butter.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 Cups All-purpose flour
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1/2 tsp Salt
- 1 tsp White vinegar
- 5 tbsp Vegetable oil
- 1 Cup Water
- 1 1/2 tsp Pure vanilla extract
Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a greased 8" square (or round...I prefer the round, but I've made this in both) baking pan.
Make 3 depressions in the dry ingredients - two small and one large. Pour the vinegar and vanilla in each of the two smaller depressions, and the vegetable oil in the large one.
Pour water over the entire thing and mix until smooth.
Bake on the middle rack of the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Let it cool, then top with your favorite frosting and enjoy!
If you’re more of a chocolate fan, check out our Chocolate Crazy Cake recipe!
And here’s another great recipe for crazy cake!
I made this and the batter was watery as someone else mentioned. After baking it was fla and spongey. I don’t know what I did wrong, but I tried doubling the recipe and baking it in a 9×13 pan.
I made this also with freshly milled soft white whole wheat flour; used date palm sugar it in so it was darker. I sliced the cake in half horizontally, topped it with a frosting I found at Publix (Simple Mills organic vanilla frosting with coconut oil-yum!) and strawberry slices and blue sprinkles (I did not have blueberries on hand!) It was like a cake-torte. the other half went in the freezer for now. I do have approximately the same recipe with cocoa powder and have made that many, many times, as I will this. Very easy and perfect! Thank you! 🙂
This recipe is delicious!
Is it supposed to be super watery? I added everything in and that’s how it came out…hope this isn’t a troll recipe like the others because I have no more flour.
No, it’s not. 🙁
Yum!
Has anyone tried this recipe using gluten free flour?
I haven’t tried this one but I know the identical recipe, except for the addition of cocoa for a chocolate cake, on King Arthur Flour, lists the use of their gluten-free flour cup-for-cup in place of AP flour. Good luck!
This looks delicious! Has anyone tried using apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar? Thanks!
I haven’t!
I have and you can’t taste it
Can this recipe be made in cupcakes? And do you use two 8inch round pans or just one?
Just found this recipe while looking for a simple vanilla cake:) can it be made in a bowl and baked in a bundt pan? Thanks!:)
I haven’t tried to bake it in a bowl!
I haven’t made this specific one in a bowl then bundt pan but did mix a lemon crazy cake in a bowl then bake in a bundt pan and it turned out perfectly. You just do it the same way with the depressions and mixing then pour into the prepared bundt pan.
Tried this recipe & it came out “pasty” instead of a cake. Not sure why.
Anne
I’ve found that is n altitude thing and can be fixed with a little more water 🙂
I will try this cake
What about frosting?
You can use pretty much any frosting you want to!
I made it with cream soda in place of the water it was good
oh, I bet that WAS good!
This is missing how much of each ingredient needed; this would be helpful in the future. Thanks!
When it got updated, it pulled out the amounts for some reason. My apologies! I’ve added them back in!
Okay I know this sounds crazy, but we refreshed the recipe and when we updated it, it actually pulled out the amounts. I just added them back in. My apologies!
What amounts do you use of each ingredient?
Okay I know this sounds crazy, but we refreshed the recipe and when we updated it, it actually pulled out the amounts. I just added them back in. My apologies!
So, I made this with pure whole wheat flour and added Almond essence instead of Vanilla.
It was brilliant! For the top, I crushed some almonds and roasted them. Them I got some date palm sugar, water, a pinch of salt and a few drops of the Almond essence and cooked it until it became sticky and topped the cake with that.
YUM. Super soft, moist and super YUMMY.
Oops, sorry. I also added the Almonds to the sticky topping as I cooked it. In case anyone wanted to know.
That sounds AMAZiNG!
My family LOVES this cake, but not with the above instructions. I basically make it the same way I make my chocolate wacky cake, minus the cocoa powder. That means, for a full cake, I use 1 Tablespoon of vinegar, and 6 Tablespoons of oil. I also up the vanilla a bit to 2 teaspoons and added in 1/4 cup of rainbow sprinkles. I aways mix the dry separate and then add the wet, gently, just until mixed. Do NOT overmix!! I love to make it in the microwave. It takes about 3-3:15 min. in mine. I just do a half batch and bake it up in my microwave brownie maker that I got at the Dollar Store, but I also have a small Pyrex dish I use sometimes, too. I’d definitely recommend trying it again if you’ve had trouble. It REALLY is good!!
My daughter made this cake last night.
It was a huge hit. She is super proud of her, she did a great job. I’m really glad I came across this recipe, this was her very first cake she’s made without a boxed mix.
Next time I’ll have her use a bit less sugar, with the icing being so sweet, the mixed cake and icing was super sweet, but still delicious.