Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

I honestly thought that I had posted this before; but I don't see it anywhere, so here it is.

Firstly. I'm not crazy - Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake is a real thing...and it's good!

The idea, of course, is that the mayonnaise takes the place of the eggs and oil that you would normally find in a cake. I have no proof of this, but I suspect that it was an innovation of either rural or Depression-era women who needed to bake a cake, but were missing some of the ingredients; either that, or it was dreamed up by someone at a mayonnaise company in order to promote the sale of their product.

To my knowledge, this is the same recipe that my mother used to use when she baked Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake. It tasted great and is indeed one of my treasured "childhood food memories." I'm checking with her to see if it is the same recipe; if it isn't, then I will replace this with hers.

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

2 cups sifted flour
1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup mayonnaise
1 cup cold water (or perhaps milk?)
1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift all dry ingredients into a bowl. In another bowl, mix mayonnaise, water and vanilla. Add to dry ingredients and mix well. Bake in 2 greased 8-inch pans for about 30 minutes in preheated 350-degree oven.

My mother would bake hers in a 9" x 13"-ish cake pan, but "toe-may-toe/toe-mah-toe," as they say. She would also "frost" her Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake with some sort of simple, white icing that was neither hard nor soft, but somewhere in-between. The only ingredients I seem to remember in it were powdered sugar and either butter, milk or both.

It could be, Melissa - I'll see what I can find out!

In the meantime, I did check the recipe above against my mother's. They are very similar. When I can, I will post hers.