This chocolate cake recipe has been around for decades. It’s also called the Whacky cake or the Depression cake. But let me tell you, the taste and texture of the cake is definitely not whacky or depressing. It’s unbelievably moist and tastes like any regular chocolate cake especially with the frosting. At first I didn’t tell my husband that the cake has vinegar in it, so he was not able to tell any difference. He liked the cake very much even after I told about the secret ingredient. But since I knew about the vinegar I was able to feel a very very very mild smell/taste. I guess it’s psychological. I have to stress here again that when eaten with the frosting this chocolate cake is so delicious. This vegan chocolate cake recipe is definitely a keeper. I’m already thinking of the variations I can make each time.

I also wanted to prepare a vegan frosting for this cake, but I didn’t have confectioner’s sugar. Actually I have it somewhere but was not able to find it. I have made a pact that I won’t be buying anything other than dairy products, vegetables, fruits and other extremely necessary groceries for the next 2 months. Recently I did a pantry audit and was overwhelmed by the things I had accumulated in the past months, especially after starting this blog. I didn’t even know that I had bought so much baking/cooking stuff. That’s why I didn’t want to buy confectioner’s sugar, even though I was so tempted to run to the grocery store.

I was wondering what to do for the frosting without the sugar because all the recipes I had called for confectioner’s sugar. I had a few packs of instant pudding mixes and thought how it would be for a frosting. I googled and found that pudding mix frosting is very common. Luckily I had the Cool Whip topping which is required for the frosting. Even though I was skeptical, I had to proceed with it anyway because I had no other go. Surprisingly it did turn out good. So the frosting is not vegan.