Mayonnaise Chocolate Cake

Several people told me that I had teased my readers with mention of an old recipe for Mayonnaise
Chocolate Cake, but had not revealed it to you. Of course the problem this cake solves is an excess of homemade mayo. Nothing better on a BLT, but how many BLTs can we eat in one week? Not as many as we'd like, but that's a separate issue. In the olden days people frequently made their own, as I do from time to time, as does my daughter. But how to use it up?
This recipe comes from an old cookbook that I have had since I was first married,. What Shall I Cook Today, by Nika Hazelton. 
This book has recipes and menus for every day of the year, and is quite charming in a retro way. Of course we all cook our families lunches from scratch every day! My sister always tried to steal it from me.

In the book it's called:
Thrifty Waldorf Chocolate Cake

2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/3 cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup water ( I always use cold coffee with a little rum or liqueur, like Amaretto or Hazelnut)
2 teaspoons vanilla (I make  my own and you should too)
2/3 cup mayonnaise

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour a 9x9x2 pan, or two 8 inch layer pans or a small bundt pan. I normally make a square one.

Mix the dry ingredients. The book says to sift, but I never do. I just dump them all in my Cuisinart and pulse it a couple times. Or put them in a bowl and whisk. If you want to sift, be my guest.
Add the water, vanilla and mayonnaise and mix thoroughly. A few pulses of the processor or beat by hand until smooth. Add to pan or pans, bake 30-35 minutes, or until cake pulls away from the sides and is not gooey inside. Frost when cool, or not. My family doesn't love frosting, so I never do. 

This is a super easy cake that you can whip up on a weeknight, and no one will ever know what's in it. Sometimes I add chocolate chips.(the mini ones work best).
Everyone will think you are amazing and in fact, anyone who bakes a cake for their family and friends IS amazing. I like mine with vanilla ice cream and berries.
Happy Friday!

Career Counseling

  Sometimes my job is super tedious like 90% of the time. Like the airline pilot joke says, it’s hours of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror. During those hours of boredom I try to imagine what my Perfect Job would be.  The job that uses my considerable natural talents and pays Big Bucks so that I can have plenty of free time,  Greek Yogurt and fancy Cat Food for the kittens. Plus extra left over from that to use to buy patterns that I might never make but need, just in case.

And Extra Money, which is a concept I explain to my children is like Unicorns or the wendigo.

Remember when your High School Career Counselor told you to list your favorite hobbies and classes and they handed out this sheet where you filled in the little bubbles with a number two pencil and then got back a printout that told you that you were divinely chosen to be a dental hygienist or a plumber or a nurse?
Mine said (not making this up, I even saved the paper somewhere) that I was best suited for Military Intelligence. OK... now that you’ve had a good laugh and are making that lame old joke about how that’s an oxymoron, just think about this. What if my high school counselor was right?
I ponder this while waiting for software upgrades to upload.
Do you suppose the Intelligence Community looking for these skills?

1. Baking bread – I guess I could hide secret messages in it. Or feed other, hungry spies.
2. Fixing failed mayonnaise – this skill came in handy just yesterday, when my daughter called saying that her mayonnaise was a giant puddle of eggy oil and I gave her the magic solution and it totally worked and mayo’d but then she had the horrible problem of two cups of fresh mayonnaise to use up after eating her BLT, which I also deftly solved with an awesome Mayonnaise Chocolate Cake recipe, baby, which uses 2/3 cup of mayonnaise. Plus also Crab Cakes, Chicken salad in Heirloom tomatoes and Garlic Cheese Bread. Leave it to a child of the seventies to know her way out of a mayonnaise glut.
3. Sewing: I could make awesome disguises. I once made my son a Darth Maul costume so awesome that he won our neighborhood Halloween contest. Plus, Star Wars! Knowing the star Wars canon has to be good for spying. “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.” I could totally say that with a straight face.
4. Painting. See disguises, above.
5. Trivia.  A person who reads all the time necessarily knows lots of previously useless information
6. Never been beaten at Chinese checkers. An unbroken streak lasting 30 plus years.
7. being able to fold those elastic bottom sheets has to be good for something.
8. Never forgetting passwords
9. Know every bridge on the George Washington parkway, thus enabling me to leave bundles of spy stuff hidden where no one but us spies will find it.
10. Tracing Burda Patterns. Anyone who has done this knows that no Cold War expert could do better at solving these Undecipherable Puzzles

Mr. Hunting Creek offers that I am really good at predicting how mysteries will end, either in book or movie form, and also remembering the plots of old movies.
Do you sit and Fantasize about other, more Glamorous lines of work? What’s your Fantasy Job?

While the Enemy Sleeps

Quick! Cut out knit dress

Terrorists are sleeping now

Cats tear patterns up

Excellent For Cat Sleeping

Wash and fold fabric

Excellent for cat sleeping

You don’t like cat hair?

Ninja Strikes Fast

File your patterns now

Not later, ninja strikes fast

Avalanche in sewing room

When Harry Met Quilting

Harry meets quilting

Fabric strips to claw and steal

Dresden plate is broken now

From Here To Tulle-ternity

The tulle lives on the top left cubbie in the Great Wall 'O fabric. Or it did. But recently, it has been found in some odd places, like in the middle of the hallway and under the ironing board. Very mysterious. Until someone was surprised in the act of tulle adoration, rolling around on the floor with it in a passionate  embrace  like Burt Lancaster and Deborah Kerr on the beach in Hawaii.
He climbs the wall of fabric as if it were a rock climbing wall, seizing the tulle bundle in triumph, taking it away for his entertainment. It is so scratchy and tullicious, he can't stay away from it. He Must Have It.
Tulle Addiction.

It's a strange love, but Love can be Strange. Who knows what will strike someone's fancy. He could say the same about some people and their charmeuse habit.