The Surprising Secret Ingredient That Will Make Your Cake Taste a Million Times Better

A Kansas City chef believes he's found the key to what he calls "chocolate nirvana." Hint: It involves a condiment usually reserved for sandwiches. 

In a recent column for the Kansas City Star, Jasper J. Mirabile Jr., the second-generation owner of a family-run Italian restaurant, explained the secret to his mother's beloved chocolate cake. 

Are you ready for this? It's mayonnaise. 

Yes, the same miraculous food staple that can also soften cuticles and remove water stains. 

"Now before you go turn your nose up at this recipe, I want you to understand why mayonnaise is used to make some of the finest chocolate cake you'll ever experience," writes Mirabile, explaining that mayo acts as a substitute for the oil that's typically used in chocolate cakes. It balances out the sugar and keeps the cake from becoming too dry. 

Mirabile's grandmother was baking cakes for the family's restaurant when she first started using mayo. "My father thought [the cakes] were a little too dry [so] my mother suggested using mayonnaise because she had seen the recipe in a cookbook and in an ad for Hellmann's Mayonnaise in a magazine," he writes.

According to the chef's research, the earliest printed recipe for such a cake dates back to 1927. He also explains that "butter, eggs and oil were rationed around World War II," so the sandwich spread made a great replacement in cocoa-based cakes. 

To learn more about baking with mayo, and to grab Mama Josephine's scrumptious cake recipe, head over to The Kansas City Star.