A is for Aimee!

What do you do when you can’t have your cake and eat it, too? And what do you do when your friends live too far from you to celebrate life’s grandest moments? You bake a cake and eat it for them. That’s what. In honor of Aimee I baked and ate a cake today.

A – always available to provide laughs, hugs, real life, and an abundance of love

I – insistent on living her life true to herself

M – marathoner. Need I say more?

E – eager to accomplish more than your average person thinks is even possible

E – encourages me through her example

Mostly I love Aimee because her real life stories are the closest thing I’ve ever heard to unbelievable and she and I can spin yarns that last for hours, involve more laughter than can possibly be healthy and we probably burn more calories in a conversation than a session of Sweatin’ to the Oldies with Richard Simmons.

If you’d like to make your own chocolate cake in honor of Aimee the recipe follows. This cake is a family favorite. My mom must have baked at least one of these a week. No kidding. We LOVE our Wacky Cake, as it’s called. I read one time this cake recipe was developed during the Great Depression because there was a shortage of milk and eggs. This cake uses neither, but is so moist and tasty, you’ll be grabbing your fork for breakfast just like me. Oh, because this cake definitely DOES taste better cold for breakfast. I’m just sayin. . . .

Wacky Cocoa Cake

• 3 cups unsifted all-purpose flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 cups water
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 2 T vinegar
• 2 tsp vanilla

Combine flour, sugar, cocoa, soda, and salt. Personally, I save the baking soda for my last dry ingredient so I can add the vinegar as my first liquid. That way I get to have a mini science lab in my mixing bowl as the soda bubbles and grows before settling back down. THEN I add the rest of the liquid ingredients: water, oil, and vanilla. Mix everything together by hand and pour the batter into a greased and floured 13x9x2-inch pan. Bake at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes (test before removing).

The Good News

1. You can lick the entire batter bowl and spoon because there are no eggs involved!
2. You don’t need ANY icing for this cake! I used powdered sugar because I wanted to make an A for Aimee, but I normally wouldn’t even do that.
3. Just to reiterate, this cake is best served cold for breakfast.

For as long as I can remember, our family has used this recipe from the Hershey’s Cocoa Cookbook published in 1979 and given to us as a souvenir during an early 1980s visit to the Hershey’s Chocolate World located at Hershey Park in Hershey, Pennsylvania. The cake pictured above was the original recipe cut in half to make a 9″ cake.

Happy Birthday, Aimee! May your life have as much Wacky Cake as you can handle.