MY FRIEND NANCY has worked with the San Francisco Bike Coalition for many years and says the experience has given her lots of insight into the world of dietary preferences. Oh, she knew about vegans and live foodists and the like (she's lived in San Francisco for years and years, after all). But activists can be a hungry group – especially calorie-burning bike activists. So when there were treats to be had, there were a few vegans who changed their affiliation to "sweegan."

What's a sweegan? That's a person who observes a vegan diet, except when it comes to desserts. (As opposed to a "freegan," who is vegan except when someone gives them food. As a former full-time journalist who attended lots of press events with snacks, I fully comprehend the freegan mindset. I even knew some "fregetarians" back then.)

But there is a secret weapon that can keep sweegans on the straight and narrow: the vegan chocolate cake.

Every baker should have some version of this cake in his or her arsenal. I first began making it a few years ago after I found a recipe in 1997's The New Joy of Cooking. I've loved that cookbook ever since I got it. It's a great basic cooking education rolled into 1,100 densely packed pages of recipes, tips, and techniques. Just a look at my copy will tell you how much I rely on it. It's bumpy, buckled, stained, and dog-eared – except for a two-inch-wide portion in the center of the book where the pages are pristinely flat and white. That's the shellfish, fish, meat, game, and fowl section.

Although Joy labels this cake "vegan chocolate cake," I've since run across lots of variations of the recipe in different cookbooks (including In the Sweet Kitchen), and lots of them don't even mention that the cake fits into the vegan diet.

So let's rename it: instead of Vegan Chocolate Cake, let's call it Everybody's Chocolate Cake. It's a truer name anyway, since this simple, chewy cake satisfies nearly everyone who tries it. In fact, I think this cake is even more chocolately than cakes with dairy in them, since milk tends to mute true chocolate flavor.

It's also Everybody's Chocolate Cake because it's so simple to make. There's no butter to cream, no egg whites to beat into stiff peaks. It can even be mixed in the pan it's baked in – just sift the dry ingredients into the pan, make a well for the vinegar, oil, and vanilla, then pour the cold water over the whole thing and mix it all up with a fork. Being a super-messy cook, however, I prefer a mixing bowl, which, because there are no raw eggs involved, can be licked clean of batter by my four-year-old daughter after the cake goes into the oven.

How does Everybody's Chocolate Cake get its moistness and tender open crumb without any eggs? It's all thanks to chemistry, my friends. You see, the recipe calls for baking soda, which releases oxygen when combined with an acidic catalyst and a liquid – in this case, a tablespoon of vinegar. Non-alkalized cocoa powder adds even more acid to the mix.

Everybody's Chocolate Cake can be served plain, dusted with powdered sugar, or frosted. The most expedient frosting is certainly the store-bought kind. Most brands are vegan, although not delicious. Or you can whip up a batch of peanut butter-tofu cream cheese frosting. It's easy, tasty, and decadent.

Everybody's Chocolate Cake

Grease and flour an 8-by-8-inch pan, or line the bottom with wax paper or parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (325 degrees if you're using a glass pan).

Sift together into a large bowl:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup sugar
6 Tbs non-alkalized cocoa (not Dutch processed. Since the cocoa provides all of the flavor, use the best you can. Scharffen Berger is a great choice here, but Ghirardelli works too.)
1 tsp baking soda
1/8 tsp salt

Combine (in a two-cup measuring cup or another bowl) and add to the dry ingredients:
1 cup cold water (Don't substitute cold coffee, as I did once to try to intensify the flavor. It just tastes bad.)
¼ cup + 1 Tbs vegetable oil (Don't substitute extra-virgin olive oil, as I did once when I ran out of canola oil. It just tastes weird and bad.)
1 Tbs white vinegar
2 tsp vanilla

Stir until smooth, but be quick about it, since once the liquid hits the baking soda, it begins to react. Put the batter in the pan and slap it into the oven. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool.

Peanut butter-tofu cream cheese frosting

Combine in a food processor and pulse just until creamy:

1/2 cup smooth peanut butter (I hate to say it, but you'll be using the Skippy here. Natural brands just don't have the right flavor and consistency. But since you always eat organic, natural-style peanut butter, a little bit of the commercial stuff won't hurt you.)

3 oz tofu cream cheese (Hey, did you know that the first ingredient in Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese is partially hydrogenated soybean oil, a.k.a. Crisco? It's true.)

1 tsp vanilla (Cook's Illustrated magazine says imitation brands are better than the real thing, but I'm suspicious.)

2 cups powdered sugar, sifted