Chocolate Dream Cake

This cake recipe is from Gluten-Free Girl. Obviously, she uses a gluten-free all-purpose flour mix, and she includes teff in it because it goes well with chocolate, but I used white whole wheat flour. You could also replace the water with coffee (decaf if necessary). It’s an easy recipe that makes for a moist and delicious cake, thanks to mayonnaise. Honestly though, next time I would omit the cinnamon. I’m also adding the instruction to dust the pan with cocoa because I felt like the cake stuck to it a bit too much otherwise. This is a great “every day” chocolate cake (by which I mean not that it should be had every day, but that it is not made for special occasions like birthdays, for example). Bon appétit!

2 cups (280 g.) all-purpose flour (see note above)
2 cups cane sugar
1 tsp. baking soda
½ tsp. kosher salt
1 tsp. ground cinnamon (optional, see note above)
½ cup mayonnaise
¼ cup shortening (ideally non-hydrogenated)
1 cup hot water
¼ cup cocoa powder
½ cup lactose-free milk or buttermilk (vegan milk works too)
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 400 °F. Grease a 9”x13” baking pan and dust it with cocoa.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon (if using). Set aside.

Set a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Add the mayonnaise, shortening, hot water, and cocoa powder. Whisk them together until everything has broken down to a thick liquid. Bring the liquid to a boil. Turn off the heat and pour the hot liquid into the flour and sugar bowl. Stir together with a wooden spoon.

Add the milk, eggs, and vanilla to the batter (I mixed them together in the measuring cup first). Stir everything together until the batter is thick and glossy, with no visible flour remaining. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake the cake until the edges have started to slightly pull away from the pan and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 minutes. Remove the cake from the oven and let it cool at least 1 hour before cutting.