Thursday, March 13, 2008

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake

Today is my Mother’s birthday, so guess what? I made her a cake. So hard to imagine. My mother loves all different kinds of desserts, but she really seems to like chocolate and cake with lots of gooey frosting no matter what the flavor. I have not tried a mayonnaise cake in long time so I looked one up this week on Allrecipes. Mayo was the condiment of choice in my house growing up and Miracle Whip was the choice in my husband’s house. I really don’t care for either one. I like plain yellow mustard in a squeeze bottle myself. So the only time that mayo is in our house is when I’m putting it in a baked good. Odd. I always forget how different Mayo vs. Miracle Whip taste until I have them both in front of me. Oh look , I’m rambling again.
Back to business, the cake stirred up very nicely and had a glow about it when I took it out of the pan. The color of the cake is very dark so do not be surprised. I chose to make the recipe in two 6 inch pans instead of one 8 inch square because it was a birthday cake. It took exactly 30 minutes to bake. I did double up on the icing to have plenty due to the increase of surface area on a layer cake. It tasted very smooth and fluffy with more of a dark chocolate taste. The vanilla really brings out the flavor.
Happy Birthday Mom!

Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups flour
3/4 cups water
Combine first 4 ingredients in bowl. Sift dry ingredients together and add them to the mixture along with the water. Stir until blended and pour in a greased 8 or 9 inch pan. Bake at 325 degrees for 35 minutes or until done. Cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Sour Cream Icing
4 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 ½ cups sifted confectioners sugar
1/3 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

In a medium sized bowl, combine melted butter and cocoa powder stir until smooth. Add the confectioner’s sugar and sour cream alternately to the chocolate mixture and beat until fluffy. Beat in the vanilla.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for remembering me with that delicious cake. I can't believe I ate so much at one time. You know I usually don't eat until I can hardly move from the table, but tonight I did and you know--I am proud of it--. The cake would also be great with a cup of coffee served in those wonderful china cups, but I could not wait until I had coffee, I just continue with whatever drink I had, which was ice tea.

Thanks again for all your trouble and I am sure you can remember growing up that I made you some cakes (ha ha).
Your ol' Mom

Anonymous said...

I tried this cake Easter weekend for a big family event that included my cousin's 40th birthday. We were having a lot of people, so I wanted a bigger cake. I doubled both the cake recipe and the icing recipe. I was using two 8" round cake pans for a layered cake, one was 2" deep and the other was 3" deep. Even doubling the recipe didn't quite yield enough batter to fill the two pans. But there was just enough icing. It still tasted great, but I think it would have been prettier if I had made more batter. What do you think about making 3 times the batter?

Kelli said...

shortgirl-
I totally agree that if you wanted a thicker two layer or 3 layer cake you should triple it. The original recipe was meant for a standard 8" square pan, but it can be easily modified since it does not contain butter. Butter does not always double well in a recipe. It can cause the dessert to become too greasy if it calls for a large amount of butter and flour.
Thanks!