Rich Frosted Chocolate Mug Cake

Lately I've really been enjoying making various mug cakes.  They are ready in just a couple minutes and make less dirty dishes than making a whole cake, not to mention that a whole cake would go to waste for us because there aren't enough people to eat it!

I think I've finally perfected the chocolate one the last time I made them so I'm going to present my recipe on the blog. Sorry, no pictures of the process since I made them quickly and late at night when the baby (oops, toddler now!) was resisting going to sleep. They were so rich and yummy!

Here's what you need to make 2. Just half the recipe if you are alone and have a chocolate craving. Or make the whole thing and devour it and feel sorry for yourself when you get the biggest stomach ache you've ever had in you life!

For the cake:

• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup oil
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• a handful of random melt-able chocolate (we had these truffle things that we were given for Christmas so I used 6 of them) use whatever you have around, chocolate chips, half a mars bar, whatever, as long as you can microwave it!

I defeated the purpose of making cake in a mug by mixing my stuff in bowls, if I was only making one I would have mixed it in the mug, it's just easier to do it this way if you're making multiples!

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in one bowl and whisk the milk, oil, egg, and vanilla in another. Pour the wet into the dry and combine.  Now microwave whatever chocolate you are using until it's just melted and stir it into your batter. Pour half into each mug and microwave for 1 minute 45 seconds. You may have to play around with the time depending on your microwave, start with 1 minute and then add 30 seconds, it might be done after that long.

The cake and mugs are going to be very hot so they will have to sit for a bit, this gives you time to mix up the frosting. For this you need:

• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1 tablespoon soft butter or margarine
• 1/2 teaspoon milk or cream

Just mix everything together with a fork, easy as that! You can spread the frosting right onto the hot cake before serving or you can do what we did, our cakes were really deep so we just spooned on a dollop of frosting for every inch of cake we ate!

*A quick change for if you want brownies in a mug instead of cake, omit the baking powder and use 2 eggs instead of one

*Other yummy add-ins: sprinkle of cinnamon, teaspoon of instant coffee, caramel, a peppermint patty pushed halfway down into the batter, etc!