Three Holer Cake

So my mother gets me this book for Christmas several years ago named "Americas Best Lost Recipes". Before she wraps it, my father asks, "If they are lost, how did they make a book of them?" After I unwrapped it, my husband asks, "Shouldn't that be almost lost recipes? I mean, how did they make a book of them if they are lost?" MEN. Anyway, this is my favorite type of cookbook, the ones that have the weird recipes (bologna pie?) with the weirder names (Grandpa Cooleys Angry Deviled Eggs) So I am looking at this book and I find a couple of my fave recipes...Million Dollar cake by any other name is still the same...amazing the lengths some will go to in hard times just to have cake. I find Wacky Cake, which I promptly describe to my friend Mandy. She listens carefully and then says "Oh. That's just Three-Holer Cake. Dad's favorite. Good cake. Not called "wacky cake", tho." Three Holer Cake is a much better name for this particular science experiment, born of a time when eggs were precious, and so was everything else. Kudos to the kitchen wizard that came up with this one, because it is actually my favorite chocolate cake, dead easy to make, half an hour in the oven, and perfect in every way. All the dry ingredients get mixed together, then you separate out the oil and the vanilla and the vinegar, which when combined with the baking soda create the leavening for the cake. Light, yet very chocolate, my hubs likes to douse this cake in Kahlua and whipped cream, the kids like it however. It is a great thing to throw in for dessert on a whim, since it takes no time at all. Tonight I made it with strawberry buttercream frosting, (the name is far more impressive than the unceremonious beating of butter, powdered sugar, milk and strawberry jam) but I like my Three Holer Cake with just unsweetened whipped cream. Deeee - LUX. Enuff talky, let's bakey:

You start with your 9x9 inch glass or metal pan...the one you make brownies in and almost nothing else. Spray her down. Pre heat your oven to 350, which is convenient if you have been baking something in the oven for dinner...just prep the dry, make your holes, then slam it in the oven right when dinner comes out. At any rate, into your 9x9, put the following:

1.5 cups flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa
3/4 teaspoon baking SODA
1/2 teaspoon salt

Whisk this together. Really. With a whisk. I have tried other things and I am right now saving you from dirtying a spoon, a spatula and a whisk. Just use the damn whisk. Level the playing field once it is all mixed. Make three holes; one big and two little. In the big one, put 5 tablespoons of oil. In one of the little ones, put 1 teaspoon of vanilla. In the final hole, put 1 tablespoon of vinegar and IMMEDIATELY whisk the shit out of it until it is cake batter, and IMMEDIATELY put it in the oven. Do not dilly dally. Do not saunter. Have you ever made a volcano from baking soda and vinegar? While violent, that reaction does not last long. The reason this is made in one pan is to remind you to "get this bitch in the oven right quick!". Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Just enough cake for you and company, not a ton left over to tempt you, not too sweet but just great. Dust it with powdered sugar, reduce some raspberry jelly with a little rum to make a sauce, lay some Hershey's syrup on it, douse it in your favorite alcohol, top it with whipped cream, or some kind of frosting. My frosting was a stick of butter, 5 cups of powdered sugar, the end of my strawberry jelly (?2 tablespoons?) and a splash of milk. just enough frosting to do that one pan. Try it and tell me that isn't your favorite "fool company with a WWII era cake and pass it off as something fancy" dessert. And tell me what you put on yours, I would love to know.