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Welcome to Chowhound’s Table Talk podcast, where Executive Editor Hana Asbrink chats with some of the most interesting names and newsmakers in the food space.
I have been a fan and follower of Chowhound’s legacy series, Table Talk, long before I arrived as the site’s executive editor. Having a community-based forum for readers to ask questions and interact with food personalities has long been one of the site’s greatest strengths.
Creating an extension of Table Talk in podcast form felt like a natural next step. Instead of being beholden to just onsite q&a, my hope has been to invite guests into our New York City studio, where we could chat—frankly and at length—far beyond just the cookbooks and book that put them in their current spotlight.
As we step into a new year and new decade, I would be so honored if you tuned in to our first season of Chowhound’s Table Talk podcast. Make some tea, pull up a seat, and get to know some of the most interesting names (some of whom you may or may not already be familiar with) in food and food media today. Subscribe and you’ll be notified as soon as the latest episode is available for downloading and streaming.
Thank you (in advance) for listening and come back tomorrow when we welcome “Great British Bake Off star” and author, Benjamina Ebuehi.
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Whoever thought of stuffing pasta with cheese deserves all the awards. There are actually more variations than you probably realized but two types of stuffed pasta have emerged as the most popular versions. So what exactly is the difference between ravioli and tortellini?
When you’re Italian, the mixture of sauce, cheese, and carbs (usually pasta or bread) is essentially the Holy Trinity of ingredients. But if you’re like many people, you never stop to consider the differences between pasta shapes and fillings because you’re too busy indulging. And who could blame you?
WTD filesWhat's the Difference Between Bolognese and Marinara?But as many times as I’ve enjoyed a bowl of ravioli and marinara or scooped out the tortellini in my vegetable broth, I’ve never actually stopped to consider what makes each of these popular stuffed pastas unique. My ancestors are probably looking down on me with grave disappointment. They definitely wouldn’t offer me a second (or third) helping if I confessed to not knowing the difference between ravioli and tortellini. Both are filled with either cheese or meat, right? So what’s the big deal?
Well, starting with the obvious, the shape of both tortellini and ravioli is quite different—ravioli being square and tortellini being round and sporting a slight hole in the center. Various pastas receive their names according to the way in which the dough is molded and prepared. Ravioli, the plural being “raviolo,” translates to “little turnip” whereas tortellini’s diminutive, “tortello,” translates to “stuffed cake.” Ravioli is two layers of pasta that form a pillow-like shape whereas tortellini is folded into hat-like shapes akin to dumplings. It’s more likely for tortellini to be used in a broth, though it’s common for both ravioli or and tortellini to include either cheese or meat filling.
Though both kinds of pasta pair perfectly with a red sauce, it wasn’t until the 19th century that tomatoes were introduced to various pasta shapes. The origins of ravioli and tortellini are oftentimes disputed, but both were created sometime in the Middle Ages in Italy. If you can believe it, pasta was originally considered a rare and expensive meal but rose to widespread popularity—particularly in the 17th century—when various versions of pasta (including stuffed) began to be mass-produced.
Related Reading: The Ultimate Guide to Pasta Types | 9 Slow Cooker Pasta Sauces to Last All Week
Pasta continues to gain in popularity over time in part because of how easy and inexpensive it was to make, but also because there’s virtually no end to the sauce and protein combinations that abound to accompany pasta. We’ve come to revere them so much there is even a National Tortellini Day (Feb. 13) and a National Ravioli Day (March 20).
If you think these Italian classics are cause for celebration all year long, try your hand at these fabulous ravioli and tortellini recipes below.
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This classic Italian dish gets a little va-va-voom thanks to hints of red pepper flakes and kalamata olives—two great ways to spice up the lovely combination of tortellini, tomatoes, and sausage. Go the extra mile and sprinkle some Parmigiano over the finished product and you’ll really have yourself a treat. Get our Tortellini With Spicy Sausage Ragu recipe.
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Sweet dreams are made of cheese, and this ravioli dish is a double whammy. If the dairy selection at specialty stores unleashes your inner Augustus Gloop a la “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,” this recipe is a must. Bonus points for being a fun vegetarian option. Get our Mozzarella and Pecorino Ravioli recipe.
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If there’s one way to spice up a serving of vegetables, you better believe it’s with some carbs. Take your soup to the next level by throwing a handful of cheese tortellini in your broth. What was once a starter dish can easily be upgraded to a main course thanks to this addition. Get our Vegetable Minestrone with Tortellini recipe.
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There’s no better way to segue into the cooler months than with comfort food like this. Red sauce is a tried and true pairing for ravioli, but sometimes you need to shake things up, and this fall fruit selection is the perfect way to do so. (Yes, squash is actually a fruit, not a veggie.) Get our Butternut Squash Ravioli with Sage-Brown Butter Sauce recipe.
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This selection totally separates the standard tortellini recipes from the tortellini recipes of champions (obviously being the latter). Baking this pasta is a genius take on the food, and with the taste of the chard and mushrooms, we’re ready to be blown away. Get our Baked Tortellini with Chard, Mushrooms, and Mozzarella recipe.
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Let’s face it: Anytime bacon is thrown into the mix, you know you’re in for a treat. This dish is basically tortellini’s answer to breakfast, especially thanks to that runny egg yolk. Whether you’re having this for brunch or dinner, it’s always a winner. Get our Egg Yolk Ravioli With Bacon-Sage Sauce recipe.
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Whenever fall swoops in, we receive the pumpkin treatment in our coffee brews, sweets, and baked goods. Now pasta is even getting into the spirit of the season thanks to this dish’s filling, complete with Cinderella pumpkin or butternut squash, ground cinnamon, and nutmeg, among other ingredients. In lieu of the typical meat or cheeses, this filling is the perfect introduction to autumn. Get our Pumpkin Tortellini with Sage and Pumpkin Seeds recipe.
Nothing is better than a classic sauce with a twist on raviolis. This dish is the ultimate cheat that’ll satisfy the most intense cheese cravings. Get the Chicken Alfredo Ravioli Bake recipe.
What better way to get your daily dose of greens than with this selection? There’s no need to feel guilty about over-indulging in carbs with this meal that’s complete with carrots, parsley, and vegetable stock. Get our Tortelloni in Brodo with Mustard Greens recipe.
Cream, corn, and carbs, comin’ right up. Though it sounds pretty filling, the light white wine, cream, and herb sauce for this meal will keep you just satisfied enough so that you still have room for dessert. Get the Fresh Corn Ravioli With Herb Cream Sauce recipe.
Note: This post was originally published in 2017 and has been updated with new formatting, links, and text.
I bought my dad an air fryer this past holiday and quickly—through his unbridled enthusiasm for it—learned that you really can use this thing for every meal. Like quick, no-mess air fryer frittatas for breakfast, for instance, alongside crunchy breakfast potatoes that require far less oil than pan-fried. It also makes juicy lunch salad proteins like chicken breast and shrimp in about half the time of a standard oven, and for dinner, he spoils himself with healthy(er) chicken wings or “fried” chicken and easy sides like sweet potato wedges and crispy Brussel sprouts.
Related Reading: What to Do with Your New Air Fryer
As it happens, Best Buy has a highly-rated Bella Pro Series 3.7-Quart Digital air fryer on sale for just $60 today, more than half off the usual price. The Bella air fryer can cook up to three pounds of food (enough for a group) and do it fast with a 1500 watt super convection heating system. And simple digital controls and timer settings make for a real “set it and forget it” situation.
We love air fryers for making healthier versions of our favorite snacks like chicken wings, fries, mozzarella sticks, and more.Buy Now
Should you spring for the air fryer, that means you’re likely going to be hosting get-togethers more often which may also mean more mess to clean. For every problem, a solution: Best Buy also has the powerful Shark ION powered-lift cordless vacuum on sale for $225 (50% off).
The shark gets high marks in purchase reviews and is often compared to a Dyson in terms of performance but at a lower price point.Buy Now
Both the Bella air fryer and Shark vacuum will ship for free by Friday if you order today. Or you can buy it online and pick it up at a local Best Buy in just a few hours, pending inventory.
Valentine’s Day generally arrives with a lot of pressure, but the best way I know how to cope is to simply focus on the food. Whether you’re planning a special date night, staying in, or throwing a Galentine’s Day affair, Valentine’s Day offers a great opportunity to make and eat some delicious dishes for your loved ones.
Celebrating Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to just be on Feb. 14. This year, with it falling right before the weekend, I plan on making it a multi-day affair. After heading out with my love on the night of, Saturday night is going to be for me and my girlfriends. Someone has already offered to bring the wine, everyone is pitching in for the pizza, so I said I’d take care of dessert.
Related Reading: The Best Galentine’s Day Gifts for Your Girls
Now, since we promised to keep it simple, I wasn’t about to make something complicated, but I did want a dessert that would be fun for a crowd. Enter my cannoli dip. Everyone loves cannolis, but truth be told, when I made them from scratch, easy is not the word I would use to describe rolling the dainty cannoli shells, and as a novice baker, filling them was a pain.
Anna Gass
A few years ago I tried cinnamon sugar pita chips and I immediately thought they tasted a lot like cannoli shells. Then I remembered the one easy part of making cannolis is the filling. So why not make a cannoli dip and instead of mess with frying, just serve with cinnamon-dusted chips? Viola! My cannoli dip was born.
It’s all the taste of the classic Italian filling in one, dippable bowl: mini chocolate chips, a blending of mascarpone and ricotta cheeses sweetened with confectioners sugar, and a sprinkle of cinnamon.
So instead of worrying about Cupid’s favorite day, spend the day noshing on something sweet—a dip that’s hard not to love. After all, love comes in all shapes and sizes, in a shell or on a chip, right?
Julia Child had a thing for Valentine’s Day. In the 1950s in Paris, America’s greatest-ever French cookbook author would spend nearly as much time with her husband, Paul, crafting original Valentines, as she would perfecting a soufflé recipe. As she wrote in “My Life in France,” her posthumously published memoir, “Valentines cards had become a tradition of ours, born of the fact that we could never get ourselves organized in time to send out Christmas cards.”
One year, Julia and Paul created a Valentine in the shape of a stained glass window, with each of the five panels having to be painted by hand. “For 1956,” she wrote, “we decided to lighten up by doing something different. We posed ourselves for a self-timed valentine photo in the bathtub, wearing nothing but artfully placed soap bubbles.”
Harvard Library
Bubbles were only the beginning of Julia’s Valentine’s Day wisdom. Here are five tips for navigating a home-cooked romantic French feast for two.
The Beef Bourguignon is on the table, in its enameled cast-iron casserole, the wine is poured—don’t squander the moment! Deliver a toast that’ll make your beloved melt. One of Julia’s favorites: “You are the butter to my bread, and the breath to my life.”
So you spent a whole day shopping and endured a sweaty, seven-hour cooking session—your efforts are not in vain, even if that soufflé you stressed about disappears in 5 minutes: The memory of a lovely meal never fades. As Julia’s first cooking teacher in Paris, Max Bugnard, once told her: “You never forget a beautiful thing that you have made. Even after you eat it, it stays with you—always.”
With a carefully planned and cooked Valentine’s dinner, you don’t need to sweat buying any other gift for your beloved. “I think careful cooking is love, don’t you?” Julia once said. “The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who’s close to you is about as nice a valentine as you can give.”
Julia was no shrinking violet—she pursued intimate pleasures with her husband, Paul, the way she slapped a chicken around the kitchen counter: with gusto. “The pleasures of the table, and of life, are infinite,” she said. “Toujours bon appétit!”
A perfect romantic relationship, like the perfect French meal, is something you never want to come to the end of. “The secret of a happy marriage is finding the right person,” Julia observed. “You know they’re right if you love to be with them all of the time.”
If you’re as in love with Julia as we are, here’s more reading to make your heart happy:
Savenor’s
Get more sweet recipes, tips, and tricks at our Valentine’s Day headquarters, including great Valentine’s Day gift ideas.
It’s hard to walk through the alternative milk aisle these days without seeing a new dairy option. There’s oat milk, almond milk, cashew milk, macadamia nut milk—certainly more choices than the ubiquitous skim, 2%, and whole dairy milks that have long reigned supreme.
Related Reading: A Vegan Mac and Cheese That’s Just as Comforting as the Original
But for the dairy-averse, including those who simply can’t digest milk, nut milks are undeniably life savers. They easily replace cow milk in any capacity, from a dash of cream in coffee to a cup of milk in pancake batter, and it’s just as rich and nourishing. And while it’s plenty easy to just purchase nut milk at the store these days, there’s a slew of benefits to making it at home.
“You control the ingredients, adding only what you choose—no fillers, no gums, no questionable, unpronounceable ingredients. It ends up being more economical for your wallet, healthier for your body, and less wasteful for the environment,” Lisa Dawn Angerame, author of “Wait, That’s Vegan?!” explains.
The long-time vegan is a big proponent of eschewing the store-bought variety for the homemade kind. Her cookbook has an easy recipe for homemade nut milk—and it only includes two base ingredients. Armed with a blender and your nut of choice, it’s easy and far from time-consuming to make big batches of fresh nut milk. Here are Lisa’s tips and tricks for making your own nut milk, plus her recipe for doing it at home.
Cashews, almonds, and Brazil nuts lend themselves well to making the best nut milk. Lisa personally prefers cashews, since the resulting milk is rich and doesn’t have to be strained.
Even if you’re using a high-powered blender like a Vitamix that can easily blitz nuts to smithereens, soaking nuts beforehand will guarantee the nuts will blend easily and yield a much creamier and smoother milk.
You can still make nut milk. Maybe you want nut milk right now and you can’t wait hours to soak the nuts. Just cover them in boiling water and let them rest for 15 to 30 minutes. The nuts will become waterlogged, making them just as easy to blend.
Once the nuts have been blended, pour the milk through a strainer or squeeze it through a nut milk bag. You want to make sure there aren’t any tiny pieces of nuts leftover.
The best part about making your own nut milk is you can get creative. “You can create any flavor profile you want, from sweetening your milks with maple syrup, dates, or coconut sugar to adding flavors like vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, or cardamon. [You can] even make chocolate milk by adding cacao powder or cacao nibs,” Lisa suggests.
Reprinted with permission from Wait, That’s Vegan?! by Lisa Dawn Angerame, Page Street Publishing Co. 2019. Photo credit: Alex Shytsman.
Homemade nut milk is a great alternative to buying the already-made-stuff in the stores. It’s easy to make and you can have plant-based milk whenever you want it. The best nuts for milk are cashews, blanched almonds, and Brazil nuts. Cashews are the easiest; the milk doesn’t have to be strained. Almond milk and Brazil nut milk both need to be strained, so run the milk through a fine-mesh strainer or squeeze it through a nut milk bag.
Valentine’s Day is prime time for chocolate of all kinds, but it’s not like it’s ever not a welcome treat. And chocolate cake is almost always number one on everyone’s list of favorite desserts, let alone comfort foods. So try one of these irresistible 23 chocolate cake recipes for any occasion, from the official day of love to that most special of birthdays. Or on a Sunday because it’s miserably cold and you need a little something sweet.
Related Reading: Essential Baking Equipment for Your Kitchen
Don’t forget the milk!
A whole cup of honey makes this chocolate cake mildly sweet and incredibly moist. Butter, in addition to vegetable oil, also helps keep the crumb soft and spongy. The chocolate-honey ganache is as tasty as it looks; try using a local honey or one with a strong flower flavor that complements the chocolate (like clover, alfalfa, wildflower, or tupelo). Get the Chocolate-Honey Ganache Layer Cake recipe.
This is a classic, simple cake recipe that’s incredibly consistent. Cocoa powder lends a subtle chocolate flavor and the one and a half cups of milk make for a delicate crumb. You can use a rectangular pan or make it a double layer cake for a more impressive presentation. Get the Desert Island Chocolate Cake recipe.
This is one of the most luscious chocolate cakes ever, vegan or otherwise, and it’s no-bake to boot! With a brownie-like bottom layer (that’s naturally gluten-free), a thick strata of silky, creamy chocolate mousse made from cashews in the middle, and a cap of chocolate peanut butter fudge, how could you resist? Get the Vegan Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake recipe.
Chowhound
Our recipe for chocolate cake with whipped fudge filling and a rich chocolate buttercream is a labor of love. This cake is a process: Don’t try to make it all at once unless you have a serious block of time. You can bake the cake layers up to a day in advance and wrap them tightly in plastic wrap to keep them fresh. And don’t skimp on the whipped fudge filling—it’s worth your while to make it yourself. Get our Chocolate Cake with Whipped Fudge Filling recipe.
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Garnished with chocolate shavings, clouds of whipped cream, and dark cherries, this cake is a masterpiece. The cherry flavor is multidimensional, with canned cherries in syrup, kirsch, and fresh or fancy candied cherries commingling with the rich chocolate flavor. (For something with similar flavors that’s less involved, try this easy Black Forest Poke Cake recipe.) Get the Chocolate Cherry Black Forest Cake recipe.
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Our recipe for chocolate pound cake is a classic, perfect for afternoon tea and easy to whip up. The glaze is what makes it really special: The combination of semisweet chocolate, heavy cream, and just a touch of light corn syrup makes for a smooth, shiny glaze that looks beautiful drizzled on top of the cake. Get our Chocolate Pound Cake recipe.
This is my favorite tried-and-true recipe for chocolate cake, created by the infamous Ina Garten. This cake is a star: I’ve never met anyone who wasn’t blown away by the rich chocolate flavor, and you can change the flavors of the frosting to suit the occasion. (Ed Note: That was written in 2015, but this cake ended up on our list of Best Dessert Recipes of 2018 for good reason.) Buttermilk and vegetable oil contribute to the moist texture, and a whole cup of freshly brewed coffee really brings out the chocolate flavor. Don’t worry if it looks a little soupy when you’re mixing the dry and wet ingredients together—it’ll turn out just fine. Get the Beatty’s Chocolate Cake recipe.
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One of the most common (and consistently delicious) restaurant desserts is the chocolate lava cake, which is actually really easy to make at home. Our recipe for molten chocolate cake is made in tiny soufflé ramekins, and is easy to scale up for a party. Be careful to cook the cakes until the tops are no longer wet but still jiggle when you shake them. Get our Chocolate Lava Cake recipe.
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If you’re tired of sweet chocolate cakes, this recipe for Mexican devil’s food cake will come as a delightful change of pace. It looks incredible when the ancho chile-infused layers are piled on top of each other interspersed with whipped cream, strawberries, and toasted almonds, and it tastes amazing—but add a little cayenne for more of a kick. (If you’re into the idea, see our Mexican Chocolate Menu for more sweet and spicy chocolate combinations.) Get our Mexican Devil’s Food Cake recipe.
Every baker needs a flourless chocolate cake recipe that they can whip up at a moment’s notice. This cake has an entire 18 ounces of chocolate packed in, not including the ganache glaze, made from heavy whipping cream and more chocolate. With only a handful of ingredients that you normally have in the pantry (butter, sugar, eggs, heavy cream) you can easily make this recipe last minute for an impressive end to a meal. Get the Flourless Chocolate Truffle Cake recipe.
This is a dense, deeply chocolaty cake that is absolutely over the top when you add the fudge frosting—a real chocoholic recipe. Sour cream enriches said frosting and a whole cup of buttermilk in the batter makes for a soft, spongy crumb that begs for a glass of milk. Try this recipe with a vanilla, mocha, or coffee frosting to tone down the rich chocolate flavors; but then again, why would you want to do that? Get the Ultimate Chocolate Cake with Fudge Frosting recipe.
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If you like malted milk balls, you’ll love our recipe for triple malt chocolate cake. Malted milk powder is easy to find at your local grocery store, normally in the baking aisle. That combined with vanilla malt frosting and a garnish of a whole cup of chopped-up malted milk balls makes this a malt-lover’s dream. Use up any leftover malted milk powder in malted milkshakes to serve alongside a slice of this cake for an old-fashioned soda fountain experience you’ll never forget. Get our Triple Malt Chocolate Cake recipe.
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This ultra easy sheet cake gets a deeper chocolate flavor thanks to espresso powder in he batter, and more espresso goes into the fabulously fluffy buttercream for a subtle mocha flavor. Get our Chocolate Sheet Cake with Mocha Buttercream recipe.
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For another take on a mocha, try this dump-and-stir cake that magically bakes up into three layers: delightfully crusty on top, moist and cakey in the middle, and ooey-gooey underneath. You don’t need frosting for this one, but a scoop of vanilla ice cream wouldn’t be amiss. Get our Mocha Pudding Cake recipe.
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For a classic chocolate layer cake without any eggs or dairy, our vegan chocolate cake is just as rich and delicious as you’d dream. Get our Vegan Chocolate Cake recipe.
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The opposite of vegan, this creamy Nutella cheesecake is dressed up with chocolate in every layer, and topped with toasted hazelnuts for a little crunch. Get our Nutella Chocolate Cheesecake recipe.
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If you prefer peanuts with your chocolate, this sour cream-enriched chocolate cake has a peanut butter swirl inside and toasted nuts on top of its bittersweet chocolate glaze (make ’em salted if you like that salty-sweet flavor contrast; we do). They may be old-fashioned, but Bundt cakes will never go out of style when they taste this good. Get our Chocolate Peanut Butter Bundt Cake recipe.
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Our take on a classic German chocolate cake proves it’s hip to be square (or rectangular, even). It’s frosted with vanilla buttercream outside, with a little of the traditional gooey coconut filling smoothed on top as well as between the layers. Get our German Chocolate Cake recipe.
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A one-layer affair, this fudgy, dense-in-a-good-way flourless chocolate torte is speckled with toasted walnuts and glazed with a shiny slick of semisweet chocolate. Get our Hungarian Chocolate Torte recipe.
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Tres leches cake traditionally contains evaporated milk, condensed milk, and heavy cream; this version does too, but it also adds chocolate, coffee, and dark rum to the mix. The chocolate shavings on top are easy to make with a veggie peeler. Get our Chocolate Rum Tres Leches Cake recipe.
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If you’re a whiskey drinker, this booze- and coffee-infused chocolate cake with a truffle-like texture is for you. The fluthered (i.e. drunken) cream also has a shot of Irish whiskey in it. Get our Chocolate Whiskey Cake recipe.
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No baking skills? (Or maybe no oven?) No problem! Get thee some chocolate wafer cookies and whip up some mascarpone with blackberry liqueur, then assemble a lovely icebox cake. It’s a great make-ahead dessert option, and it’s not just for summer. Get our Chocolate Icebox Cake recipe.
Jessie Sheehan
Even if you’re not a major mayo fan, you’ll love this cake—the mayonnaise just makes it super moist (and really, eggs and oil aren’t uncommon cake ingredients). It’s an easy snacking cake that tastes great with whatever frosting you like; try a vanilla buttercream (for a pink tint, mix in finely pulverized dehydrated raspberries or strawberries), or salted caramel frosting—or double down on the cocoa with a bittersweet chocolate frosting. Get the Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake recipe.
Get more sweet recipes, tips, and tricks at our Valentine’s Day headquarters, including great Valentine’s Day gift ideas.
This post was originally published in 2015 and has been updated with new images, links, and text.