Hope me prove a point, science boffins. →[More:]In the office yesterday we were talking about cake (if you work in an office you will know how important things like cakes, biscuits (cookies) and chocolates are to the general enjoyment of the working day) and I mentioned the famous
chocolate mayonnaise cake and commented on its general deliciousness.
One of my team-mates said that he wouldn't be able to eat it because he can't eat anything with a high fat content, such as mayonnaise (but he can eat cake made with butter or i-can't-believe-it's-not-butter, etc.).
I said that I thought he
would be ok to eat mayonnaise cake if he can eat normal cake because, from my understanding of cake baking, in order for a cake to 'work', it has to have proportionate amounts of fat, eggs, sugar and flour. Too much sugar, for example, and it sinks and goes crispy round the edges. Too fatty, and the batter curdles. Too much flour, and it won't rise (or something). So a mayo cake would not, proportionately, contain more fat than a normal cake or it wouldn't turn out right.
I remember at school being taught the basic proportions for a cake as 4oz sugar, 4oz butter, 2 eggs, 8oz flour (in the olden days before England went metric). In a mayo cake you replace the butter and eggs with a 7oz jar of mayo.
So am I right in saying that a mayo cake would have the same fat/flour/sugar/egg proportions as a butter cake and therefore not be higher in fat?