The True Story of the Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake Part 3

The True Story of the Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake Part 3
This is a video about the 1945 version of the Mayonnaise Cake Recipe; but for many the Mayo Cake is mistakenly called the $100 dollar cake or even the $1000 dollar cake if your Mom was someone who exaggerated.
BUT - these are not the same cake. The confusion stems from both cakes being published for the very first time in a column by Cissy Gregg in the Louisville Courier -Journal March 6 1945. Two separate cake, two separate recipes, but one mangled half truth myth told over and over again and ultimately cut and pasted on untold blogs all over the internet. Cissy Gregg spent many years pulling her hair out trying to set the record straight... But once a myth is born, it's impossible to get humans to see and accept the truth. (as I'm sure will be born out in the comment section of this video)
Anyway - most of the stories around the origin of the mayonnaise cake can't be verified, and this is the first time I was able to find this version (now the most common version) of this cake in print. Last week we made the 1927 version ( https://youtu.be/teyeffTS1uo ) which is a slightly different cake.
Many attribute this cake to the Great Depression (the 1927 version predates the Great Depression by a couple of years), or to wartime rationing.. but the 1945 version happens in the post-war years, and doesn't catch on until 1948 when the USA was in full post war boom.

1945 Mayonnaise Chocolate Cake

One cup sugar: two cups flour (and I used cake flour from habit, although nothing was mentioned about it in the directions passed on to me); three tablespoons cocoa: a pinch of salt; one teaspoon soda.
Sift together about three times or until the flour. etc. have so mingled themselves with each other they can never be separated again. When the sifting is done, make the last through the wires land in a mixing bowl.
Now add one teaspoon of vanilla; three fourths cup "from out of the jar mayonnaise, and one cup hot water.
Pour into a greased tube pan, or having nothing in the size in tube pans, do as I did and bake it in a square 10-inch cake pan or two 8-inch layer cake pans.
Bake in a 350-degree oven for about 22 to 30 minutes.
Frost with cocoa frosting or chocolate or some sort.
This cake bakes out very chocolate-y looking and is as light as frou-frou, and bears not the slightest suggestion of being born of mayonnaise.




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