When you’re craving for some cake, and want to bake a quick one, don’t let the empty egg carton in your fridge put a stop to your plans. There’s always mayonnaise!
Click start to play today’s Word Search and spot the ingredient among other pantry essentials. Don’t forget to check out Gulf News’ Food section for recipes, guides and everything to do with cooking and cuisines.
Back in 2020, when everyone was adding to their recipe repertoire with various new bakes, adding mayonnaise to cake batter instead of eggs and oil emerged as a new trend.
But in actuality, it was a throwback to the bleak breadline years of the Great Depression in the West, in the 1930s. With limited access to eggs and oil, people made do with mayonnaise – and discovered that it didn’t just effectively replace those two ingredients, but enhanced the flavour of the cake. The practice became so widespread, mayonnaise manufacturers began adding cake recipes to the labels of their containers.
According to the James Beard award-winning food website Serious Eats, mayonnaise works especially well in chocolate cakes, which have a tendency to become dense. The extra oil in mayo adds tenderness to the cake crumb and the vinegar in mayo actually works as a flavour enhancer. Its acidity offsets the cake’s sweetness, making chocolate cake even more delicious and luxurious than usual.
There are several other surprising substitutions that work well in cakes. For instance, instead of oil, you could use cooked and pureed pumpkin, yoghurt, cauliflower (unseasoned, cooked and pureed), banana (ripe and mashed) or sour cream.
Discover substitutes for baking powder and a vegan alternative for egg whites.
And if you’d prefer to try making chocolate cake without any eggs at all, check out this recipe.
What do you think of mayonnaise in your cake? Play today’s Word Search and let us know at games@gulfnews.com.
