Chocolate Cake

Living with a child with food allergies means constantly looking for new recipes that will be tasty enough for the whole family to eat. On a day to day basis, I don't usually make Diego-friendly food for all of us. I usually set a side Diego's portion and add soymilk, soy cream cheese, or whatever I need to add to make sure he can eat it. Then I pile on the cheese, sour cream, or whatever to our food. Sometimes, however, especially when it comes to baking, it's just too much of a hassle to make him a separate portion. That's when I try to find recipes that work well with soymilk, fake eggs, etc, so that we can all eat the same thing. I do this for meatloaf, banana bread, cornbread, you name it. Not everything works well with egg replacer or soymilk, as I found out this Valentine's Day morning as I tried to make chocolate waffles. Didn't work. They wouldn't fluff up like they are supposed to. I ended up making chocolate pancakes instead. They were very thin and flat, and didn't look so good, but they tasted just fine. Especially with berries on top.

Anyway, back to the point of this post. Before Diego's 3rd birthday, I had yet to find a good cake recipe. Well, thanks to allrecipes.com, I found one! It's a chocolate cake, and you can't tell it's made without milk or eggs. So if you know anyone with food allergies, this is a good cake recipe that everyone can enjoy.

Diego's Chocolate Birthday Cake

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 t salt
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 t baking soda
5 T vegetable oil
1 T white vinegar
1 t vanilla extract
1 cup cold water
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips (I have to use Ghirardelli because they were the only ones I could find that don't have the milk protein in them)

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8x8 dish. Combine flour, salt, sugar, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Mix well with fork, then stir in oil, vinegar, and vanilla. When dry ingredients are thoroughly moistened, pour in cold water and stir until batter is smooth. (I have found that whipping it with an electric mixer for at least 3 minutes on high has given it the consistency I like...like a mix between brownies and cake.) Stir in chocolate chips and pour into pan. Bake 30-35 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.