Chocolate Mayo Cake
by Eric N Gibson
Contributing Writer
It was 2:00am. I was trolling the internet in search of something inviting, mysterious, alluring, borderline sinfully decadent. That can only describe one thing… Chocolate Cake!
I found it! Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake, a recipe made famous by the Depression and food rationing of WWII. I know, I thought the same thing, ¨Mayonnaise in cake?¨ But it was all the rage back in the day. Hellman´s, reportedly, even put the recipe on their jar labels. And I too, remember once, many years ago, sitting around the lunch table at work, when a coworker, an avid follower of these articles, (thank you Deb!) mentioned that she actually substituted a dollop of mayo for an egg in a recipe for brownies. Well, not too long after that I tried it and it actually worked; a dollop for an egg. Just how big is a dollop? Bigger than a smidge but smaller than a smattering. But remember, the old adage, ¨If a little is good, a lot must be better!¨ is not always true.
Why? Because not too long after this success, night fell quietly upon the Gibson household. It was 9:00pm when the silence was broken by a little voice saying, ¨I need brownies for tomorrow.¨ Dad to the rescue! A double batch coming right up! I had 1 egg and needed 4. The stores were closed, the in-laws down the road didn’t have any eggs. What´s a guy to do? Use mayo! So I subbed in about a half a cup, perhaps a smattering more, of mayo for the missing eggs. The results were what one could only politely describe as… mud. Hot in the oven, it was a mass of searing bubbly dark brown gooey ¨stuff¨. When held on its side, it slowly oozed off the pan like molten lava, only this didn´t form into a crust as it cooled. Why? Because, in my haste, I forgot that mayonnaise was both eggs AND oil. I never lowered the ratio of oil needed to compensate for the oil in the mayonnaise. But I digress…
The ever faithful internet is awash with recipes for Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake. I would wager that many of you could even find one or two recipes in mom’s or granny’s recipe box. Some may even have the original recipe still on the mayonnaise label from 1927. Now that’s an heirloom worth keeping! The recipe I am using, with a little adjusting to the ingredients, was found at the Joy of Baking website, but from what I´ve seen, the recipes differ little from site to site. I found this cake with its Chocolate Sauce ¨topping¨ to be moist, rich, dense but not heavy, and really chocolatey delicious. I decreased the amount of liquid used by one cup (the coffee) while adding the shredded Zucchini, giving this cake some extra body. (Did I mention we have a ton of Zucchini?) Chocolate cakes, brownies, and chocolate muffins, by the way, are a great way to get kids who do not like veggies to eat Zucchini. The ingredients really come together well in this throwback to a simpler time. A great treat for any occasion and most certainly worthy of a Simple Feast. Enjoy!
