Mug Cakes: Sticky Toffee Pudding and Dr. Oetker Review

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.

Double Chocolate Microwave Mug Cake

 

When I made the chocolate and pear mug cake for myself, I couldn't leave out my boyfriend, but he doesn't like pears. So I turned to the same recipe book, Mug Cakes by Mima Sinclair - well, if my dessert wasn't going to involve any washing up apart from a mug, I wasn't going to get out the mixing bowls for his!

I thought he would appreciate the triple chocolate cake from the book; having said that the recipe only seems to use two types of chocolate so I'm going to call it a double chocolate mug cake!

To serve one, you need:
2 tbsp. softened butter plus extra for greasing
40g dark chocolate, finely chopped
1 egg
2 tbsp. semi-skimmed milk
3 tbsp. caster sugar
3 tbsp. self-raising flour
pinch of salt
for the ganache:
6 tbsp. double cream
50g dark chocolate finely chopped

Begin by making the chocolate ganache; place 4 tbsp. of the cream in a mug and microwave on high for 30 seconds. Add the 50g dark chocolate and mix until the chocolate has melted.

Place the butter and 40g chocolate in another mug which must be able to take 350ml of liquid and microwave for 10-20 seconds on high until melted.

Using a fork, carefully mix in the egg and the milk and then the sugar, flour and salt. You then need to spoon this out into a third mug (OK, so this recipe does create a bit more washing up!) which you have greased with a little softened butter. This is important as you want to turn the cake out of the mug later.

Microwave for 2 minutes in an 800 watt microwave; add or subtract 10 seconds for every 100 watt difference. Allow to cool before eating; when you are ready to serve, turn the cake out into a bowl and pour the chocolate ganache over the top. It may not look the most attractive dessert but it tastes pretty good and is ready in a matter of minutes!

I am sending this to Cook Blog Share hosted by Lucy at Supergoldenbakes.

Chocolate, Toffee and Pear Mug Cake and Fruit Bow Review

The Dot Com Gift Shop is one of my favourite online retailers as they have such a broad range of gifts and so many of them are themed around cooking, baking and kitchenware - I have a few gifts earmarked to purchase this Christmas!

They recently sent me a fruit bowl to review, that I think would make a great Christmas gift. It comes in two parts but it's very easy to screw on the base - you don't even need a screwdriver. It's a large bowl so would be good for people with families or who eat a lot of fruit - though it's also a good way to encourage people to get their five a day!

I love the design; the white wire work would fit in almost any kitchen décor and it looks both modern and a bit vintage at the same time, if such a thing is possible! It costs £19.95 which I think is a good price for the size and quality.

I filled my fruit bowl as soon as I received it, leaving me to wonder afterwards what to do with all the fruit! I recently came across a lovely little cookery book called Mug Cakes by Mima Sinclair - I knew you could make cakes in a microwave as I remembered a girl called Kate doing it at university as we didn't have an oven in halls - and a while back I made my own chocolate mug cake. It never occurred to me there could be a whole book of recipes dedicated to microwaving cakes in a mug or that so many flavours and ingredients would work!

I love pears and bought a few for my fruit bowl so when I saw a recipe for chocolate, ginger and pear cake in a mug I decided to try it. I changed it though as I left out the ginger and added toffee sauce instead; the original recipes uses both ground and stem ginger but I had all the other ingredients in the house and liked the idea of just throwing the cake together from what I had. I also used milk chocolate instead of plain which I think gave a more fudgy taste. So this is what I did:

You need:
1 tbsp. softened butter
20g milk chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 an egg, lightly beaten
1 tbsp. semi-skimmed milk
2 tbsp. caster sugar
2 tbsp. self-raising flour
pinch of salt
1 ripe pear, peeled
1 tbsp. toffee sauce

You need to make sure your mug is big enough - the recipe book recommends a 350ml mug. The easiest way to check is to fill a measuring jug with water, pour it into the mug and you will see if it holds 350ml!

Place the butter and chocolate in the mug and microwave for 10-20 seconds until melted.

Add the egg and milk and beat together with a fork.

Add the sugar, flour and salt and mix carefully with the fork until smooth.

Slice the base off the pear so it will sit in the mug and press down gently so it is in the middle of the cake mixture.

Microwave for between 1.5 and 2 minutes depending on the power of your microwave (2 mins for 700 watts, 1 min 50 seconds for 800 watt, 1 min 40 for 900 watt etc). Leave to cool before you eat! To serve, spoon a little toffee sauce over the top - I used a jar of ready made toffee sauce I found in Lidl or you could use the squeezy toffee sauce you can buy to go over ice cream, or Carnation caramel, or make your own.

I wasn't expecting  much from a cake made in a mug in a microwave but this was amazing. The cake was just the right consistency and the pear softened beautifully; the flavours worked well together and this is definitely something I would make again.

 

 

I'm sending this to Cook Blog Share, hosted by Lucy at Supergoldenbakes.

Microwave Chocolate Orange Cake

Have you ever made a cake in a microwave? I knew of a girl at university who made them a few times as we didn't have ovens in our student halls, but I had never tried it myself. Until recently when my boyfriend wanted dessert after dinner, I hadn't made anything and didn't particularly want to spend long making a pudding, but I didn't want him to just get a bar of chocolate from the cupboard. So I had a look online for some microwave chocolate cake recipes and as usual put my own spin on it by adding some pieces of a Terry's chocolate orange that I happened to have in the cupboard.

Microwave Chocolate Orange Cake- an original recipe by Caroline Makes
Serves one but can easily be scaled up
4 tbsp self-raising flour
2 tbsp caster sugar
2 tbsp cocoa powder
1 egg
2 tbsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp milk
2 Terry's chocolate orange segments

You need a large, sturdy microwave-safe mug (i.e. with no gold trim!) to make this. You can mix the ingredients in the mug; it is easier to do it in a bowl but to me half the fun of this was making the entire thing in one mug.

Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa powder then make a well in the centre and break in the egg. Mix in as smoothly as you can then add the oil and the milk.

Insert two chocolate orange segments in the mug and push in.

Microwave on high for three minutes - that's all it takes!

You can either eat this straight from the mug or turn out (using a knife run around the sides) into a bowl. The chocolate orange melts on top and the rest of the mixture does actually turn into a cake! It's a bit on the stodgy side and certainly not the best cake I've ever had but for a dessert that you can make in less than five minutes from start to finish you can't complain!

I'm sending this to Dead Easy Desserts, the blog challenge run by Maison Cupcake and hosted this month by Michelle at Utterly Scrummy. The idea is to send in desserts that take 30 minutes or less to make; I don't think you can get much faster than this!