Last Christmas I received a book called 'Mug Cakes' full of recipes to make in the microwave in a mug. It's a brilliant concept- when you really fancy something cake-y for dessert but want it then, not in an hour's time! I have already made a few mug cakes (chocolate, and toffee and pear) and when the weather was bad a little while ago we really fancied cake, so I flipped through the book until I found something we would both like where I had all the ingredients. I decided upon a sticky toffee pudding.
To make one, you need:
The largest mug you can find
2 tbsp. butter, softened, plus extra for greasing the mug
4 tbsp. toffee sauce
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp. dates, chopped
3 tbsp. brown sugar
4 tbsp. self-raising four
Grease the inside of the mug and spoon in 3 tbsp. of the toffee sauce.
Place the butter, egg, 1 tbsp. toffee sauce, vanilla and dates into a small bowl (or another mug, but a bowl is easier) and beat together with a fork. Fold in the sugar and flour and mix in. Spoon into the mug that has the toffee sauce at the bottom.
Microwave for 2 and a half minutes on high if you have a 600 watt microwave or 2 minutes for a 1000 watt microwave. You can estimate somewhere in between eg 2 minutes 15 seconds for a 800 watt microwave.
Leave to cool enough that you can eat it; you can either turn the cake out into a bowl as the toffee sauce at the bottom should then run over the top, or eat it straight from the mug - to save on the washing up!
That's what we did and the cake was lovely and the toffee sauce at the bottom was an added bonus.
Not long after this I saw that Dr. Oetker had launched its own range of mug cake mixes which are even quicker - you just mix milk with the powder, microwave them for a minute and you're done! I thought this was a brilliant idea - mug cakes are pretty quick anyway but you still can't quite make them in a television advert break by the time you have found the ingredients in the cupboard and mixed them together! Whereas the Dr. Oetker mixes really are super fast.
I was sent three flavours for review: chocolate, chocolate chip and lemon. I have to admit I haven't tried the lemon yet (but will update this post when I do!) - the weather has gotten warmer again and I don't really fancy cake!
You literally just mix the powder with milk. This is the chocolate chip...
... and this is chocolate flavour.
Microwave and the cake is risen and ready.
I was sent a few other bits and pieces by Dr Oetker including this chocolate cupcake centre - it has a nozzle you insert into the cake, squeeze and it fills it with chocolate sauce.
I topped it off with a mini chocolate heart. These are so cute and brilliant for decorating cakes or desserts.
This is the finished chocolate cake - it hasn't risen anywhere near as much as my home-made mug cakes do.
Side-by-side an instant hot dessert. The cakes did definitely taste more artificial than my homemade version and I found them incredibly sweet. I'd prefer these with a little less sugar but for those times when you have immediate cake cravings - or like when I was a student, you don't have an oven - I think these are a great idea.
Thanks to Dr. Oetker for sending the cake mixes, chocolate filling and hearts for review. All opinions are my own.