10 Minute One-Bowl Chocolate Cake

I found this recipe for chocolate skillet cake in the summer 2010 Penzey's catalogue and bookmarked it as a "must try". Earlier this month it was my birthday and my husband wanted to make me an impromptu birthday cake - this recipe immediately came to mind. It's literally a ONE BOWL cake - you don't even make the cake in a bowl, you make it directly in the skillet or baking dish - you only need the bowl for the frosting! For some reason the recipe isn't available online, but it's attributed to Marcia Rose-Ritchie, and it's delicious and simple and a great last-minute dessert or treat. It's also relatively light for a chocolate cake, and doesn't have a lot of added fats or weird ingredients - I'm including the nutritional info that I've personally calculated, so it may be a bit different from the nutritional info in the catalogue as I wanted to give you the most accurate information possible. You probably already have the ingredients on-hand - so make a chocolate cake tonight!

Chocolate Skillet Cake

serves 12

adapted from Marcia Rose-Ritchie's recipe in the summer 2010 Penzey's catalogue

Cake Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 3 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp salt
• 6 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil
• 1 Tbsp vinegar
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 cup cold water

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients together into a 10" cast iron skillet (or an 8x8 baking pan).
2. Make three wells in the dry ingredients. Pour the vegetable oil in the first well, the vinegar in the second well, and the vanilla extract in the third well. Pour the cold water over the top, and stir with a fork until well blended.
3. Bake at 350 for 25 minutes. Let cool, then frost.

Frosting Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 3 Tbsp unsalted butter, softened
• pinch of salt
• 2 Tbsp brewed coffee, room temperature (you can use milk instead if you don't like the taste of coffee)

Instructions:

1. Sift the powdered sugar, cocoa, and salt together into a large bowl. Add butter and mix or cream (in an electric mixer) until well blended (mixture will still look very dry, you will barely be able to see the butter in there).
2. Add the coffee or milk and mix well - frosting should become a nicely spreadable consistency at this point.
3. Spread over the cooled cake.

That's it! If you do use the brewed coffee in the frosting, the frosted cake will have a distinct coffee flavor. Not overpowering, but if you prefer a regular chocolate frosting or don't like the taste of coffee, you should be able to use nonfat or lowfat milk without an issue here. And here is the nutritional info (notice the recipe serves 12 - the serving is about the size of a brownie, not a huge slice, so be sure to take that into account when cutting cake portions):

Nutritional Information: Calories: 268; Fat: 10g; Cholesterol: 8mg; Sodium: 297mg; Carbohydrates: 43g; Sugar: 31g; Fiber: <1g; Protein: 2g

This dessert can be made vegan or gluten-free with some simple substitutions - a gluten-free flour mix can stand in for the all purpose flour, and a vegan butter substitute can stand in for the regular butter.