Depression Cocoa Cake

 

"My Grandma Ableman always called this her 'depression' cake because that's the year she she tried the recipe and because many of the times she made it my Father ran through the door causing the cake to fall!" 

This is how Mary Ann Behn tells the story of this cake in the church cookbook handed down to me when I got married.  I have shared before that I not the most highly skilled chef on the planet.  Speed, nutrition and quantity speak to me most in a recipe.  My go-to recipes rarely come from Barefoot Contessa's, svelte tv cooks, nor anyone named Julia. : )  More often than not they come scribbled on index cards.  They were shared by women who favored tightly set hair made just so in these: 

...women who sported loose button down blouses worn over polyester pants and tie shoes, more often than not with plastic framed glasses to boot.   They would not be considered fashionable by today's standards, nor particularly savvy about gourmet cuisine. They were more concerned about how to use up all that extra zucchini. They knew well how to fill a lot of plates and how to secure happy smiles from those around their tables. 

This cake has appeared in my kitchen regularly in recent months since it is cheap and easy to make and lends itself well to adapting to coconut flour.  I will give you the original directions along with my modifications:

Depression Cocoa Cake 

1c. sugar

1 egg

1c. coffee or sour milk (it comes out fine with water or reg milk too) 

1/3 c. cocoa

1tsp. soda

1/2 c. shortening (I use veg oil)

1/2 tsp salt

1 and 1/2c. flour (I use 3/4 c. coconut flour) 

"Cream sugar and shortening.  Beat in the egg.  Alternately stir in dry ingredients and the liquid.  Sour milk makes a richer cake and coffee makes it a darker chocolate. Makes one layer or  an 8x8 pan. Bake at 350 until the middle is done."

Those are the 'official' instructions.  Here is the way its done here. I have never made the single recipe but always double it. An 8x8 pan is just a teaser here.  I mix the whole mess together, often right in the baking pan, call it good and throw it in the oven.  Because why? Because I am NOT the most skilled chef on the planet remember?  ; )   And, I often have someone in need of a diaper or bandaid or homework help or a sit in the rocking chair and it usually trumps creaming and folding.   Maybe there will come a day when no one is having a disaster during cake making.  That day is not this one, but I am not waiting until then for chocolate.  Nuh, uh.  

Now for the flourless part.  If you use coconut flour, only use half the amount of flour called for.  It will make a marvelously light cake that melts in your mouth.   I have not tried it any other way so you will have to tell me how it works out if you use other flours. 

 

Comments

[Sue]

I just love recipes that were handed down by those wonderful ladies of an earlier, more practical generation! We've been kind of "cookied out" around here (I could make cookies in my sleep, so they are the first thing I think of to make for a treat), and I can't wait to try this out. I'll let you know how it goes.

[Tina]

Sounds wonderful! And the best recipes are always the ones handed down. It's an edible piece of history. ;)