A rich, chocolaty, moist, easy-to-make, one bowl chocolate cake made with mayonnaise instead of butter and eggs. This chocolate mayonnaise cake made in a bundt pan is an old fashioned treat that you’ll want to make often.
My grandma was a sweet, quiet lady, who loved to collect recipes. She passed away decades ago, but we still have her recipe collection, and tucked in with her other favorite saved recipes was a recipe for a $100 cake.
The history of the $100 cake is similar to the Niemann Marcus cookie recipe. Someone was charged an exorbitant amount of money for a recipe from a restaurant, and so they shared it with everyone.
After looking at the ingredients though, I believe it’s more commonly known as a Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake, or a depression era cake. When butter and eggs were scarce you could substitute mayonnaise, which is made from eggs, oil, and a little vinegar, and still bake a rich, delicious cake for a special celebration.
I love the ease of making this recipe. You don’t need a mixer. Just mix your dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl, and make a well in the center. Then all you need to do is add your liquid ingredients and mix until the batter is well blended.
Since I bake a lot of bundt cakes, I decided to buy a fun, new swirly Heritage Bundt Pan. The bundt pan only holds 10 cups of batter, so this cake was perfect since the recipe originally made an 8-inch round cake.
I decided to top the cake simply with some Smucker’s Salted Caramel and some chopped toasted pecans. The cake is so rich, moist and delicious that it doesn’t really need any topping at all.
$100 Cake – Chocolate Mayonnaise Bundt Cake
Ingredients
- 2 cups sifted cake flour
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup cocoa
- 2 teaspoons baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1 cup cold water
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, add mayonnaise, cold water and vanilla. Mix until well blended.
- Pour into greased and floured 10 cup Bundt pan (I used baking spray with flour.) Bake for 35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
More cake recipes you might like:
Baking Tips for Layer Cakes, Barbara Bakes
Triple Layer Chocolate Cake, Barbara Bakes
Black Forest Cheesecake Cake, Barbara Bakes
Chocolate Peanut Butter Bundt Cake, Love From The Oven
Chocolate Turtle Bundt Cake, Melissa’s Southern Style Kitchen
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Sara
I haven’t yet tried this. Do you think it is possible to put cocoa into only half of the batter to make a marble cake?
Melissa Griffiths
I haven’t tried it but what you would want to consider is that the cocoa powder acts a little bit like flour (it’s a dry ingredient), you might end up with half of the batter a little thicker than it’s meant to be and the other half a little thinner than it should be.
Susan
Does the temperature of the mayo matter? As in straight out of the fridge vs. room temp?
Barbara Schieving
Hi Susan – I used it straight out of the fridge but room temperature would probably work even better.