My mother always made a chocolate sheet cake with no milk or eggs in the batter and sugar-coated nuts on top. It wasn’t until I was older and compared notes with other relatives that I realized this was her mother’s recipe. Now that my Grandma Katie has passed away, her signature wacky cake recipe is a treasured family heirloom.

Wacky Cake is also known by a variety of other names, including Depression Cake, Crazy Cake, Dump Cake, and Cockeyed Cake.  It most likely developed during World War II as a response to food rationing.

If you haven’t tried Wacky Cake, you really should. It will amaze you at how moist and delicious a cake made without dairy products and with a touch of vinegar in the batter can be.  I’ve taste-tested this recipe numerous times, so I should know.

The traditional frosting is brown sugar with chopped walnuts, but powdered sugar is also used. If you want to be non-traditional, you can always add buttercream or cream cheese frosting. Delicious!

No-Egg Wonder Cake (Wacky Cake) Recipe

I usually don’t sift anything when I make this recipe, however, the cake will be lighter if you do. If you don’t have a sifter, press the dry ingredients through a metal sieve with the back of a large spoon.To avoid any possibility of ingesting transfats, my family doesn’t use shortening.  In this recipe, I’ve substituted Coconut Oil, which has a consistency that is a lot like shortening while being more flavorful and healthy for you to boot. You can also substitute butter. When I substitute the shortening with salted butter, I omit the salt in the recipe.

I also avoid cooking with conventional waxed paper as it is made with wax from petroleum. I also avoid using parchment paper that is bleached. Honestly, it’s fine to just grease the pan.