Warm chocolate cake in minutes, using only common baking ingredients, a mug, a spoon, and a microwave?  With my experience as a baker, I was skeptical when I heard about the web video sensation known as Chocolate Cake in a Mug.  Could any micro waved cake, especially one assembled and mixed all in the same mug, be as delicious and instantly gratifying as the popular video promised?

From a baking standpoint I had reservations.  Cakes typically like a delicate touch, and batter made in the small space of a mug had to be beaten pretty vigorously to blend.  Then there was the unreliability of the microwave cooking method itself – what takes 2 minutes in one oven might require more or fewer seconds in another.  A cake could turn out over- or undercooked.  
But the biggest question of all was, of course: What would a cake made in a matter of minutes in a microwave taste like?  I gathered the ingredients from my cupboards, set to work, and soon had my answer.
The results? Two versions of a microwave chocolate cake in a mug.
The original chocolate cake made in a mug in the microwave is a quick fix for a late night chocolate craving, and is best eaten warm when the chocolate chips are still melty and the cake hasn’t deflated and settled into itself.  Cooled, the cake’s lack of deep chocolate flavor is more apparent and its texture becomes dense, something like the consistency of hardened foam insulation.
Here’s my advice with this recipe.  If you are in the middle of a severe chocolate cake hankering, and have all the ingredients on hand plus only one spoon and one mug to work with, give the original version a try. 
Immediately after I made the original version of Chocolate Cake in a Mug, I began to think of ways to improve both the taste and texture of a microwaved cake.  Improvement to me meant amping up the chocolate flavor and refining the method to make a more delicate cake without sacrificing too much time and ease.  Bottom line?  I really hoped to be able to make a cake that would not just quickly satisfy a craving, but one that might also be worthy of a place on any dessert table.

I found inspiration in a recipe by Nigella Lawson for a molten style chocolate cake that is oven-baked in a ramekin.  After a bit of playing with measurements, sure enough, later that afternoon I arrived at a second version of Cake in a Mug, a better version I thought, one using far fewer ingredients and an extra bowl for mixing, but still assembled and microwaved in short order.

Fewer ingredients means the chocolate flavor shines in the spotlight.  The extra bowl means more room to mix the batter in the gentle way a good cake deserves.  It works!  The flavor and texture of version number two were miles better than the first cake done in the microwave, and luckily for me, our unbiased taste tester agreed.

For Better Chocolate Cake in a Mug, you’ll need only five ingredients.  In a very slight trade off, you have to have a bit more equipment on hand – a small bowl, a fork, a rubber scraper for mixing, and two mugs instead of just one. 

That’s right, the recipe makes two intensely chocolate cakes that are reminiscent of a really good flourless cake in texture.  One for now, one for later.  Or one for you, and one for sharing with someone special. 

Our taste tester Dave Hatch definitely prefers the new version over the Internet one. This video was filmed in the Doyon's Kitchen & Appliance Showroom at the Doyon's location in Gloucester, MA. You can obtain more information at their web site; www.doyonsappliance.com