Vanilla Crazy Cake You Can Make With No Eggs, Milk, Or Butter
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.
Want more cake recipes? Check out:
- Bailey’s Mousse Cake
- Almond Bundt Cake
- The Best Icebox Cakes
- Rainbow Unicorn Cake
- Chocolate Crazy Cake
- Victoria Sponge Cake
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:
- All-purpose flour
- Sugar
- Baking soda
- Salt
- White vinegar
- Vegetable oil
- Water
- 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!
If you’re more of a chocolate fan, check out our Chocolate Crazy Cake recipe!
Ingredients
- 1 ½ Cups All-purpose flour
- 1 Cup Sugar
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- ½ tsp Salt
- 1 tsp White vinegar
- 5 tbsp Vegetable oil
- 1 Cup Water
- 1 ½ 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!
Why do you mix everything in the pan you are baking it in and not a bowl and pour into baking pan!
Why not reduce the amount of dishes to be done? ?♀️
Hi, I’m planning on making this cake for my mother’s birthday. We’re in lockdown and I’m happy to find a recipe that doesn’t require butter. Could you please provide me the ingredients in metric? Thanks so much!
I am in Spain. I just made your Wacky Cake .It turned out really great. My husband is vegan so this recipe being dairy and egg free was excellent. We couldn’t taste the difference between a normal sponge and this one! We are well impressed! I made the cake using one quarter of a cup LESS of sugar and it was still lovely. I made a warm fruity vegan sauce to go with it and it was great. I have noted this in my own recipe book as a prize cake. Brilliant, thank you for this!
Hi! If I don’t have vegetable oil what can I replace with? My little ones first birthday is in a few days and would like to make this for him but with the restrictions in shopping right now I’d rather not risk it and go out. Thank you!
You can substitute unsweetened applesauce for the oil. Makes the cake even healthier!
Dp ypu use the same amount of applesauce in place of oil ?
Yes, I use the same measurement of applesauce as of oil. Sometimes I combine half oil and half applesauce. This is a very forgiving recipe. I always cut the sugar in half, too.
Made this cake and it was delicious!! Hubby and kids loved it as the cake was light and very moist with lots of flavour . I doubled the recipe and baked it in a bundt pan for 40 mins. I used apple cider vinegar in place of white vinegar, and had to substitute pure lemon extract in place of the vanilla as I was all out. I drizzled a lemon glaze over top of the cake. Thank you for a yummy cake recipe that is easy to make with only a few ingredients!
Did you mix it all in the bundt pan or mix in a bowl and transferred into the bundt?
I have been making a chocolate version of this cake my entire life! We love how moist it is, and that you can get such a nice texture with AP flour. Now I’m happy to try a white version of this cake.
very nice cake for anyone with a sweet tooth or just bored and wants something quick
It came out gummy….like it didn’t rise enough….so I popped it back in the pan and cooking longer. Maybe my baking soda wasn’t fresh enough? Not sure if that makes a difference. If I tried it again maybe I’d add baking powder as well. We’ll see.
That happen to me too! Not sure If I over mixed it
Your baking soda was old then. One way to tell how fresh baking – put a tables[poon in a cup and add a splash h of vinegar- the amount of fiz indicates its freshness and no fiz means it is good only for cleaning.
I wanted to have a go at this cake but it doesn’t tell you in what measures the ingredients are
What if I don’t have vinegar?
you can use lemon juice as a substitute
I made this cake because I’m stuck inside and can’t go get eggs and milk. I thought it turned out okay but I would in future add maybe more vanilla. I couldn’t taste it at all. Seemed more like a white cake.
This cake was really good! My husband can’t have sugar so I made it with Stevia.
can i use powdered sugar instead on granulated sugar?
Because it is much finer I think that you might need less of it or it will be too sweet.
Powdered sugar also contains cornstarch.
My grandmother used to bake us a chocolate oil & vinegar cake for our birthdays each year. It will be fun to try a vanilla version. Thanks!
Always made the chocolate oil and vinegar cake for my three boys on their birthdays with peanut butter frosting. To this day they love it and they are now in their forty’s and fifties. Can’t wait to make this in vanilla. Thanks for sharing.
I hate the cake It was so bad why is there vinegar and oil It was the worst cake I ever eat even my family agreed with me that was a terrible cake NEVER BAKE IT’S CAKE IT’S TERRIBLE
Oil is normally in cake as is vinegar if one makes a buttermilk base.
So so funny! I can’t stop laughing! You must come from another country and are more used to different foods.
Can you use almond flour
no.
how much of each
Can the flour be gluten free?
Any suggestions on changing it?
Is there a similar frosting or topping recipe without having eggs on hand?
Why pour the wet ingredients into separate depressions?
Do you mean, I should mix the ingredients in the pan i will use to bake the cake, will it notburn?
Yes you mix in the same pan. No burning 🙂
Just made this and my family loved it! Thank you for sharing
To make a layer cake, do I need to double the recipe?
Yes. This recipe as it is only makes one layer of cake.
I did! Would recommend doing each layer in a seperate pan if you have muliple pans of the same size. I did all the double mix in one tin and still worked fine tho. Got 3 big layers or 4 smaller ones
Can self rising flour be used?
I dont have white vinegar. Could I use apple cider vinegar instead?
I don’t have white vinegar could I use apple cider vinegar?
Yes, you can use apple cider vinegar instead of the white vinegar 🙂
I used malt vinegar and it was fine so any vinegar should work