My son turned four on our vacation in Rio and we celebrated with a family favorite, Wacky Cake. It's a classic version of a dairy-free, egg free chocolate cake but because of the differences in available ingredients here, I had to make a few changes.

Delicious nonetheless! We took the tram up the Sugar Loaf and celebrated with cake and the phenomenal views of Rio.

Here's my usual go-to recipe for wacky cake and below is the recipe with substitutions.

1 1/2 cups flour
1/4 cup of sugar
1/2 cup cocoa (with added sugar)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon of white vinegar
1 cup of water
5 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 vanilla bean (scraped from the inside of the pod)
1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
Sliced dried apricots (optional)

Preheat the oven to 350. Mix all of the dry ingredients together and sift them to prevent the cocoa from getting clumpy. Add vinegar, water, oil and vanilla paste and stir until thoroughly combined. Add chocolate chips. Lightly grease a baking pan (9x9 can work nicely). Bake at 350 for approximately 25 minutes. We cut this into 16 small slices and topped with sliced dried apricots.