Hundred-Dollar Cake

The name sounds fancy, but this chocolate cake is Depression-era clever. Mayonnaise-style salad dressing replaces the eggs, butter, and oil in a standard cake recipe. The dressing is already an emulsion of eggs, oil, and vinegar, so it does the work of three ingredients in one scoop. The result is a remarkably moist, tender crumb that stays soft for days.

Mixing is dead simple: stir dry ingredients together, mix wet ingredients together, combine, and bake. No creaming butter, no separating eggs, no sifting multiple times. This is a dump-and-stir cake that a kid could make.

The boiled frosting is a retro touch worth trying. Sugar, cocoa, milk, and butter get boiled together for one minute, then stirred as they cool until thick enough to spread. It sets into a glossy, fudgy shell that’s somewhere between a glaze and a ganache.

Kitchen Tips

• Use mayonnaise-style salad dressing (like Miracle Whip), not real mayonnaise. Real mayo is heavier and tangier, and the cake won’t rise the same way.
• Don’t overmix the batter. Stir just until the dry ingredients are incorporated. Overworking develops gluten and makes the cake tough.
• Start checking the frosting as it cools. The window between pourable and too-stiff-to-spread closes fast. You want it to flow slowly off the spoon.
• Add the vanilla to the frosting after it comes off the heat. Boiling burns off vanilla’s volatile flavor compounds.

Variations

• Vanilla version: Skip the cocoa in the cake batter for a white cake with chocolate frosting.
• Coffee frosting: Add a teaspoon of instant coffee to the frosting mixture for a mocha finish.