Gaga's Three-Holer

I have way too many recipe magazines.  So I decided to go through the magazines and tear out recipes and place them in plastic page protectors in a three ring binder - for future reference.  I began going through the June/July 2011 Issue of Taste of Home and found this recipe.  So instead of tearing it out, I went and made it for Shannon.   This recipe is from a 90-year-old woman who was a friend of the Editor-in-Chief of the Taste of Home Magazine.

The recipe includes:

1-1/3 cups sifted flour
1 cup sugar
3 TBSP cocoa, unsweetened
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup canola oil
1 TBSP vinegar
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup cold water



1.  Measure flour, sugar, cocoa, soda and salt into sifter; sift twice. Sift all into an un-greased 9-inch square baking pan.

2. Make 3 holes; put canola oil in one, vinegar in second and vanilla in third. Pour water over all. Mix with a fork until blended and batter is thin. Bake at 350 for 30 min., no more. Cake is so moist it doesn't need frosting.

So I made three holes down the middle - all the same size.  I first put the vanilla in one of the holes.  Then noticed the canola oil amount - 1/3 cup - that was not going to fit in any of my holes that I made.  So made a bigger hole. 

I am not for sure why you have to create the three holes, if it's all getting mixed up together anyway, why would the holes matter? I have no idea. I really don't. But I complied.   Guess its for the name.

I did not try to cake - but Shannon said that it would have been better with icing.  So today I am going to icing the cake.  It is a neat little recipe - EASY!!! Especially with no eggs, which I don't always have.  I did put Chocolate Butter Cream icing on the cake the next day.


I will make this cake again!