Cake in a Mug! Or, How I Tried to Have My Cake, and Eat It Too.

One problem with living alone is that it really limits the number of meals you can make. For example, I like lasagna, but I don't want to spend two whole weeks just trying to get through a pan of it. Because of this, my mealtime choices are rather slim.

Enter the cake in a mug. A co-worker told me about this last week, and the future suddenly seemed brighter. Was there finally a way I could have just a piece of cake without having to bake an entire cake? I looked online for a recipe, and found a lot of different versions. The one I went with is the one I found here.

First, you have to have a mug. This one is probably my favorite. Thank you, Target dollar bin!

In the mug, mix the following:

4 Tablespoons flour
4 Tablespoons sugar
2 Tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 Tablespoons milk
3 Tablespoons oil
3 Tablespoons chocolate chips(optional)
a small splash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. (One of the recipes I read online suggested using a knife to do the mixing with. I found this to be a good suggestion since the curves of the spoon make it hard to reach the corners of the mug.)
Add the egg and mix thoroughly.
Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.
Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla, and mix again. Pretty!



Then the fun really begins! Here's what the directions I found say:
"Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed!"

Here's what happened:

A better view:

Um, I think I should have been alarmed. Luckily, it wasn't too hard to clean up. Then the directions said, "Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired."

That didn't look too appetizing, so I tried to make it prettier by cutting it up a little bit.

Better! But who eats cake without ice cream?!

In the end, this was really fun to make, but I don't think I'm going to be doing this very much. First of all, as I was making this I kept thinking to myself, "Why don't they just say to mix this all in a bowl with high walls so you know it's not going to spill all over the place?" I guess saying Cake in a Bowl isn't as fun as saying Cake in a Mug.

Then there was the texture issue. This is the size of a piece of cake, but it has an entire egg in it! Talk about a dense piece of cake! My co-worker had said one mugful was enough for two or three people, and now I know why.