In launching Leisurely Homemaker, I have discovered that many of the recipes I’m confident enough to publish happen to be vegan. I myself am not vegan, but I like to do my best to serve food that all my guests can enjoy. Over the years, I’ve discovered that I love the challenge of experimenting with recipes to come up with a great vegan alternative that is delicious in its own right and isn’t trying to be something it isn’t, like my vegan pumpkin pie (if I do say so myself!).

This recipe [skip to it now], for a simple but delightfully chocolatey, moist chocolate cake, didn’t take much experimenting. It’s based on a recipe for wacky cake that I grew up making, with a few tweaks in the method and chocolate content. If you aren’t familiar with it, ‘wacky cake’ is a cake you mix right in your cake pan and somehow it comes out right. How wacky!

Actually, growing up we didn’t call it wacky cake, and we mixed it in a regular bowl, but having since looked at wacky cake recipes, I’ve discovered it is basically the same thing. What’s neat about these recipes is that they tend to be vegan without advertising it. They were vegan before we called it vegan. They were just, y’know, frugal and not wasteful. I sometimes wonder if they date to the Depression or war time, since you can imagine cake would be tough to justify if it used up all your eggs and milk!

This recipe is great because it uses items that are pantry staples in my house, and it mixes up quickly and bakes reliably. It’s a great one to make with your kids, since it’s simple to make and there are no common allergens outside gluten. It being vegan is really just a bonus I noticed when I first needed a vegan cake recipe and realized I already had a great one! Keep an eye out for my go-to vegan frosting recipe, which I know you’ll love and will share soon!

Without further ado, here’s my go-to quick chocolate cake recipe. (See the notes at the end for how to modify it into an equally delicious vanilla cake!)

Quick & Easy Vegan Chocolate Cake

Ingredients:

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup sugar
• 6 tbsp cocoa, sifted
• 1 tsp baking soda
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 cup water
• ⅓ cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp white vinegar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350F and grease and/or line the pan of your choice. See note below the recipe about cake size options and how it affects cook time. 
2. Combine dry ingredients (flour through salt) in a large bowl.
3. Add the wet ingredients (water through vanilla) and mix thoroughly.
4. Pour the batter into your prepared pan(s) and bake until a toothpick comes out clean. That’s about 18-22 minutes at 350F for regular cupcakes; for other pan sizes, see the directions below.
5. Let cool in the pan for at least 10 minutes before removing and allowing to cool fully on a wire rack. For larger cakes, I recommend leaving them a little longer. Too little or too long a time and it will stick.
6. Once cool, top with your preferred icing and serve, or freeze for later.

Note on cake and batch sizes:

For a single batch, you can make 12 cupcakes, 24 mini cupcakes, or two 6” round cakes. For a double batch, you can make one 13”x9” cake, two 8” round cakes, or two pans of cupcakes of any size. For cake pans, I like to grease with butter (vegan works fine!) or PAM and add parchment paper to the bottom for easy removal. For cupcakes, I often just spray with PAM but sometimes I also add liners.

As to cook time, they are as follows:

• For each pan of 12 cupcakes, 18-22 minutes.
• For each pan of 24 mini cupcakes, about 12-16 minutes.
• For 2 6” rounds, 28-32 minutes.
• For 2 8” rounds, 32-35 minutes.
• For one 13”x9” pan, 40-45 minutes.

Note for vanilla variation:

If you want a vanilla cake instead, omit the cocoa and double the vanilla. Or do one better, and keep your 1 tsp vanilla extract and add 1 tsp vanilla bean paste! It’s super yummy.