B.A. Gourmet's First Dessert: Johnny Rotten Cake

One of the unexpected benefits of starting this blog is that friends, relatives, and acquaintances (once aware of its existence) have started to send me their own recipes to try. That's one of the great things about cooking, in my opinion, the fact that it tends to draw people together. Even if you only look as far as family, I'm sure there are a few recipes lurking around that have been passed down through the years. All you have to do to tap into them as a resource is express a little interest. More often than not, people are more than happy to share their food, stories, and opinions with you. Case in point, me!

Today's recipe actually comes from one of my previous professors, the very talented writer, instructor, and baker Jane Satterfield. If you have any interest in the genres of poetry or memoir, you'd do well to look her books up. They come highly recommended.

Several weeks ago, Jane sent me a recipe Johnny Rotten Cake, so named by her family after the expression "Eat this lovely sponge; not that rotten cake," meaning save your appetite for something special. The following recipe may be better known as Wacky or Three Hole Cake (the reason for that will be clear soon) and is a popular southern dessert.

Johnny Rotten Cake is very much in line with the spirit of The B.A. Gourmet; it's simple to make and requires very little preparation/cooking time.

Ingredients:

3 Cups of Flour

2 Cups of Sugar

1/2 Cup of Good Quality Cocoa

2/3 Cup of Oil

2 Teaspoons of Baking Soda

1/2 Teaspoon of Salt

2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar

1 Teaspoon of Vanilla

2 Cups of Water

Additional Icing Ingredients-

1 Cup of Chocolate Chips

1/2 Stick of Butter

Steps/Analysis:

To my surprise, all of these ingredients were already in my pantry. If you live with someone who does even a little baking, you probably do too, so take a look around before you go grocery shopping.

Pour all of the dry ingredients in a 9x13 inch baking pan. (That's right, no mixing bowls required!) The recipe I was given states that you do not need to prep the pan at all. Because this was my first dessert attempt, though, I decided to take out some insurance by rubbing it down with a little Crisco and dusting it with flour.

(Note: I actually ended up using half milk chocolate cocoa and half dark chocolate cocoa. That was not by design, though. The ran out of milk chocolate and didn't notice the different labels until I had already started pouring the dark chocolate. I'm a fan of dark chocolate anyway, so I continued onward. The end product did not suffer as a result of the combination.)

Use a spoon or your fingers to make three holes in the resulting mound (hence the cake's formal name) and pour the wet ingredients into them. If the vinegar makes contact with the baking soda, there will be a little foaming (a la the classic science fair volcano project), but there shouldn't be enough of either ingredient to overflow the baking pan.

Carefully mix the ingredients until a mostly uniform consistency is achieved. Then, place the pan in a 350 degree oven for 25-30 minutes. You'll know it's done when you can insert a sharp knife or tooth pick into the center and it comes out clean.

Allow to cool and ice if desired. For the icing, place the chocolate chips and butter (cut into chunks) in a microwave-safe bowl and zap it for a minute or until you can stir it up into an icing consistency. Spread it over the cake and let it set up.

Serving/Notes:

This is a great recipe. It's economical, adaptable, and easy to pull off. The cake comes out pleasantly dense and moist. It's not overly sweet by itself, though, so the icing is a good idea. I definitely plan on making this again and look forward to trying out all kinds of interesting variations. Thanks, Jane!