Memories of a Portuguese Island and Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake
The new issue of Sunset Magazine had arrived in the morning mail and I strolled back from the mailbox slowly flipping the pages as I went. We had just moved to Arizona and I was hoping to find a brilliant Southwest landscaping idea, one that would transform our under-designed back yard into a Mediterranean masterpiece.
As I browsed through the magazine, searching for an answer to my backyard design dilemma, up popped the devil in the form of an eye-stopping, mouth-watering, full-page ad for Super Moist Chocolate Mayo Cake. I was totally distracted. My mind jumped from cactus flowers to chocolate fantasies in a nanosecond. It had been years since I’d made a Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake! Ed was still an active duty Air Force pilot and we were based at Lajes Field, in the Azores, Portugal.
If you’re geographically curious, Lajes Field is a U.S. air base on the island of Terciera, the third largest – hence the name Terciera—-of nine tiny islands in the mid Atlantic Ocean, about 800 miles off the coast of Portugal. From the air, as you approach Terciera, if the weather is clear, you can see all nine islands sitting like extraordinary jewels in a setting of vivid, sparkling-blue waters that range in color from brilliant turquoise to deep ultra marine.
In the summer, it’s warm and sunny with a temperature that never gets above 85 degrees. Santa Maria and San Miguel, the two largest islands are destination resorts for European tourists. In the winter, the rains come to stay and the winds blow constantly. While 100-mile-an-hour winds were not the norm they were not unexpected. We were always prepared. We tied down our garbage cans, endured the weather and enjoyed life. I loved our easy lifestyle and the warm and gentle Portuguese people.
When you live on a small island you make your own entertainment and you entertain frequently. That means you plan party menus and you cook with creative exuberance. There were dinner parties, card parties, cocktail parties and theme parties – “He wore a handsome Greek toga made from silver gray bed sheets and she, a purple satin floor length creation trimmed with braid and roped at the waist. The gown, when not being admired at a theme party, reverted to it’s more mundane life as sleepwear”.
We filled our leisure time with backyard picnic parties and boat parties and poker parties and beer busts and a large number of charity fund raising events from dances to bake sales to golf tournaments to spaghetti dinners and anything else we could dream up. Food, to a varying, degree, was involved in each.
When you live on a small island you covet any great-tasting new recipe you can dream up, then immediately claim ownership by naming it after yourself i.e. Martha’s Marvelous Meat Loaf or Shirley’s Saucy Pork Chops. Shirley actually submitted her pork chop recipe and had it accepted for publication in a best-selling cookbook.
You especially coveted any recipe made from ingredients that came in boxes, cans and jars as our only grocery store was the base commissary and reliable commodities came in boxes, cans and jars. Fresh meats, tough or tender, and vegetables, fresh or wilted, arrived from the U.S. courtesy of our Air Force and the whims of the weather. We learned quickly to disguise almost anything, tough or tender, fresh or wilted in a casserole—-and that a successful dinner party was often helped by the addition of a gallon of Portuguese wine liberally applied both inside the casserole and inside the dinner guests. Innovative recipes often developed due to unexpected circumstances.
A collection of luscious dessert recipes was very important. Who among us doesn’t look forward to dessert? We had Dessert Bridges, Sunday Brunches, Salad Luncheons, Sit Down Dinners and Midnight Suppers. A decadent dessert was an anticipated and almost mandatory finale to each. In addition we periodically invited the Officers’ wives from Portuguese Air Base Four for tea at our Officers’ Club. The ladies loved anything sweet–very, very sweet–and we obliged them with an impressive selection of tiny pastries full of sugar and spice and fruits and whipped cream together with a wonderful assortment of little finger sandwiches a la British high tea. While our Officers’ Club kitchen prepared all of these mouth-watering tea goodies, our Officers’ Wives Club prepared the tea menu, often contributing a favorite recipe.
Brazilian Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake, a spin off of Chocolate Mayo Cake, was often a popular part of the menu. The O Club used the recipe to make a sheet cake that they cut in small squares topped with a Chocolate Glaze (Ganache). At home it was most often baked in a bundt pan for casual bridge parties and buffet suppers. We drizzled the top with Chocolate Glaze or simply sprinkled the top with powdered sugar. Either way it’s delicious. It is fast and easy to make and quick and simple to slice and serve. It’s rich, dense and moist and one of the best chocolate cakes I have ever eaten. It is also wonderful served, plated, with tiny scoops of coffee ice cream drizzled with a little chocolate sauce.
BRAZILIAN CHOCOLATE MAYONNAISE CAKE
Serves 12 to 16
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- 1 box chocolate cake mix (I use Duncan Hines Devil’s Food)
- 1 cup mayonnaise
- 1 cup cold coffee
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp. pure vanilla
Blend all ingredients according to package directions. Bake in a greased and floured Bundt pan for 40 to 45 minutes. Cool in the pan for 20 minutes; remove from the pan and cool on a wire rack. Sprinkle with powdered sugar or frost with Chocolate Glaze.
—And from the September, 2005 issue of Sunset Magazine—-
—-more than 40 years later—–
SUPER-MOIST CHOCOLATE MAYO CAKE
- 1 box chocolate cake mix
- 1 cup Best Foods Mayonnaise
- 1 cup water
- 3 eggs
- 1 tsp. cinnamon (opt.)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Blend all ingredients.
Bake as directed on box
If you’re so inclined, here is a simple chocolate glaze recipe that is especially delicious and very quick to complete.
CHOCOLATE GLAZE (Ganache)
- 6 ounces bittersweet chocolate
- 6 Tbs. half and half
- 2 Tbs. Kahlua (optional)
Melt over low heat stirring until well blended. Let cool until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes. Spread on top of cake and allow to dribble down the sides. Sprinkle with slivered toasted almonds if you’d like. Sunkist brand in the produce department is good.
Note: If you’d rather not own a large bottle of Kahlua, a miniature bottle can be found at your local liquor store.
Everything old – really is new again!
ENJOY–ENJOY–ENJOY