Mhays wrote:While I rarely use it, I always keep eggbeaters in the freezer (yes, they freeze well) in case I run out of eggs (which tends to happen when I'm right in the middle of baking) Half an egg is easy if you use them; they're perfect for micro-baking. Looking at the recipe, I don't know that pumpkin is required: I bet you could replace the 2 tbsp of pumpkin with the other half of the egg and some other kind of flavoring. Or replace it with a fruit puree, maybe a dried-fruit puree would be easiest.

Ah, never would have thought of eggbeaters. This may be occasion to try some for the first time. How would you defrost 1/2 an egg's worth?

I like the idea of fruit purée more broadly. I forgot that I've been keeping pumpkin on hand in the form of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Butter, which is my go-to oatmeal mix-in these days. I also always have one or more Seedling fruit butters in my refrigerator. I have a feeling I'm going to be pulling out all of my mugs tonight...

If you slide them out of their little plastic tub, the resulting ice cube can be cut into quarters, which I think nets you half an egg per quarter. Or, before you freeze them, pour them into ice cube trays...

Yes, fruit butter was also a thought I had...I've got gingerbread-flavored (made with molasses and ginger) apple butter that I think might work in that recipe very nicely.

Awesome. The thread headline grabbed me. I like this idea due to time constraints or spontaneity reasons.

Mhays wrote:If you slide them out of their little plastic tub, the resulting ice cube can be cut into quarters, which I think nets you half an egg per quarter. Or, before you freeze them, pour them into ice cube trays...

Oh, boy. This might be beyond my skill level so I think I'll just try dumping in a whole egg for now.

Mhays wrote:Yes, fruit butter was also a thought I had...I've got gingerbread-flavored (made with molasses and ginger) apple butter that I think might work in that recipe very nicely.

I also have a spiced chestnut purée that I picked up at Bari a while ago and haven't opened yet. I may try that, too. This is fun already!

="Mhays" I bet you could replace the 2 tbsp of pumpkin with the other half of the egg and some other kind of flavoring. Or replace it with a fruit puree, maybe a dried-fruit puree would be easiest.

The good news about these recipes: if you screw it up while experimenting, it goes into the garbage with very little waste.

Apple puree might work...I made a mistake on my apple crisp yesterday b/c I was too impatient to wait for the butter to melt before adding the dry ingredients. I improvised and folded in cooked apples, mushed it with a fork, and then ended up with applecrisp cookies after baking it off. I would not recommend doing this again but it was salvageable.

Okay, here’s the super simple individual 5(prep time) minute apple crisp recipe that I adapted from here.

This is not a recipe b/c I kind of eyeball and experiment w/ proportion and amounts but here’s what I did:

Mix some oatmeal, flour, other grains of your choosing(about ½ to ¾ cup per serving)
Add sugar
Chopped nuts(optional)
Pinch of salt
Some nutmeg
Some cinnamon

In a pan, melt some butter THEN add the dry mix until dry ingredients are moistened. Put in fridge.

Slice up some apples and drizzle with lemon(one apple per serving)

Put into individual oven-safe bowl. I used a small cereal bowl.
Cover the apples with the mixture.
Bake at 300 until it smells and looks done(about twenty minutes for individual size).

It turns out really well and smells great.

Today I tried making the mug cake using gluten-free flour, even though I lacked xanthan gum, and it turned out beautifully. An improvement over the regular kind, even. The texture was more souffle-like, although it hardly rose at all.

As I'm in a really bad mood (and thus deserving of chocolate) and in the name of experimentation, I tried the Chocolate-Almond Desperation Cake subbing an equal amount of pear butter that I need to finish...it worked delightfully. I also nuked in a mug for 1 min 30 sec, instead of the longer time.

Result: while there is a fruity flavor, the cake is delightful and moist, much more like a cake - edging towards flourless chocolate cake. I see no reason why this version wouldn't work with GF flour as well.

I'm jealous of all of you. My GF mug cakes tonight were disasters. I used the recipe upthread to make two versions, pumpkin and chestnut. For both I subbed white rice flour for the millet flour. For the pumpkin, I only had a scant tablespoon of pumpkin butter to use. Since the butter was already spiced and pretty sweet, I skipped the cinnamon and cut the sugar in half. I also used a whole egg. The result was like the hard yellow foam used to make tennis shoes. I spit out the first bite then tried to salvage the rest by soaking it with 2 shots of Amaro Lucano, my go-to rescue for spongey cake. No help. I spit out the second and last bite.

I then tried again using the chestnut spread I bought at Bari. I used 2 tablespoons of chestnut spread, again halved the sugar and used 1/2 an egg (anything to improve on my previous attempt). The result: a little less hard and dry than the pumpkin cake with the grainy texture and sweetness of Lithuanian marshmallows. I did taste the chestnut though. I dumped this second cake after 3 small bites.

I'm going to keep trying, probably with pear butter next and about half the cooking time.

I tried the mug cake recipe with a little bit of cider vinegar,no egg, Ghirardelli ground chocolate, flour, sugar, pinch of salt, pinch of baking soda. It turned out well with a nice cake consistency albeit a bit dry. I think I'll play with cooking time a bit. I think ice cream on top would be nice or some quick frosting.

For some reason, tonight I was craving a plain yellow cake, so I set out to modify my original recipe. I think I nailed the chemistry (I was right, more fat!) but this version came out a bit sweet for my taste - here's the recipe as I tried, I'd back off a good deal on the sugar.

Vanilla Desperation Cake

3 Tbs. butter
3 1/2 Tbs. vanilla sugar
1 egg
4 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp. baking powder

Directions:
Put butter and sugar in the microwave, and heat for 30 seconds until butter is melted. Whisk in egg after cooling slightly. Add flour and baking powder, stir well, and spread in the container (I'm using a large cappucino mug, it fills it almost entirely when baked.)

Microwave on high for 2-2.5 minutes. Take the container out of the oven immediately when the cooking is done, take the lid off, and let cool for at least a few minutes. Grate chocolate over the top. Enjoy.

Scaleable Easy-Bake Oven Chocolate Wacky Cake recipe

Here you go, h_s! Gluten-free chocolate mug cake.
This one has to be the easiest I've found. It's a bit sweet for my taste (adding extra cocoa didn't cut the sweetness,) and the texture is admittedly eggy, but it works really well.

I am SO all over this!
Thanks!

Mhays wrote:Here you go, h_s! Gluten-free chocolate mug cake.
This one has to be the easiest I've found. It's a bit sweet for my taste (adding extra cocoa didn't cut the sweetness,) and the texture is admittedly eggy, but it works really well.

EASILY the best thing that's happened to me today. It was pretty spongey, but in a better way than the other GF mug cakes I've found. I made it "gooey" by dousing it with chocolate syrup. Thank goodness I only had one egg in my refrigerator. Otherwise I'd be asking, "How many mug cakes does it take to equal a full cake?" And that's how many I would have eaten. Thanks, Michele!

P.S. I used closer to an 1/8 c powdered sugar, and the sweetness was just right when I tasted it out of the microwave. Then, of course, I added the syrup.

I don't have the ingredients for this, but it looks like it could be easily adapted to a mug cake.

To that end, here are the ingredients in approximately the proper scale if someone wants to try it (assuming mug cakes are about 2 servings of a sheet cake):

2 1/2 tbsp melted butter
1/4 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/3 cup sugar
1 small egg, beaten (it's actually 2/3 of an egg...I suppose if you wanted to go all accurate you could use 2 quail eggs)
Scant 1/2 tsp baking powder (unless you have a 1/3 tsp measure!)
2/3 cup of Mochiko flour
1/4 cup evaporated milk (you could try cream, I suppose; plenty of protein in the egg)

LMK if anybody tries this out. I like the idea of an exceptionally vanilla-y cake, and I wonder if the sticky rice flour might make for a less spongy texture.

In case anybody is wondering, I did NOT run out and buy the ingredients for this...well, except for the rice flour...and I did NOT just spend an evening satisfying my curiosity to find if it was a better cake than my last vanilla attempt...it is... and if I had done either of those things, I might also mention that I might have substituted cream for evaporated milk and vanilla sugar with a slosh of vanilla for the past and it worked just fine.

Now all I have to do is find a use for the other third of an egg...

Hi,

This sounds like something MHays or anyone who participated in this thread would have come up with: “101 Recipes for Microwave Mug Cakes.”

Regards,

Also if the cake lacks moistness and richness think about putting in a tablespoon of mayonaise.