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igenlodeI've been experimenting with the recipes from Sandra Mahut's "Mug Cakes: Chocolate" because it looked interesting and practical, but the proportions just seem wildly improbable, particularly in comparison to other mug cake recipes out there.
The introduction says that if a mug cake overflows, then it means the mixture has too much butter or else the mug is too small or narrow. I ditched the approximate measurements in the recipes (a half-inch slice of butter, six squares of chocolate), weighed out my ingredients and found that my previous attempt had resulted in about twice the quantity supposedly specified, and tried again. I tried standard mugs, wide mugs and extra-large mugs, and the recipe still overflowed -- and it was very sweet and oily. I wouldn't have thought it was possible for a chocolate cake to contain so much sugar and butter as to be distasteful, but apparently it is. (American tastes? But this isn't an American book, which was one of its attractions; 'mug cakes' on the Web tend to be written from a US perspective.)
The typical recipe from this book uses 1oz butter, 6 squares of chocolate, 5 tablespoons of flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a whole egg and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Comparable recipes on the Web (e.g. https://www.janespatisserie.com/2018/04/26/chocolate-mug-cakes/ which I haven't tried, and https://www.crazyforcrust.com/double-chocolate-peanut-butter-mug-cookie/ which I've used successfully on several previous occasions — omitting the chocolate chips and cutting the peanut butter down to 1tsp instead of 1 tbsp!) omit most or all of the egg, use unsweetened cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate, use 1 tablespoon of fat instead of 1 ounce, and less flour. And much less baking powder. With a whole egg plus half a teaspoon of baking powder, no wonder it overflows!
I experimented with reasonable success with a 'white chocolate and blueberry' cake by using 3tsbp of flour in place of five, 4 squares of white chocolate instead of eight (admittedly the 'squares' on my cheap-as-possible generic supermarket chocolate seem to be twice the size of hers), 1 tbsp of butter instead of 1 ounce, 1 tbsp + 1tsp sugar instead of 2 tbsp, 1 tbsp of milk in place of the egg and 1/4tsp of baking powder in place of 1/2 tsp (plus 5 blueberries). The result was pleasantly moist, still sweet and rich, and remained within the bounds of the cup!
An experiment at making the 'chocolate orange' cake using half quantities of chocolate with a whole egg, 1 tbsp marmalade and 5tbsp flour as directed, but less butter, sugar and baking powder, was less successful — it frothed to the top of the mug but seemed a bit dry afterwards. Possibly I should have cut down on the flour to allow for the reduced fat, or else I simply needed to reduce the cooking time...
At all events, the book is interesting as a source of ideas for possible combinations (e.g. white chocolate, chilli and raspberries), but the actual recipes aren't very helpful. The only real way to make use of it would be to work out your own practical 'basic recipe' and then add the extra ingredients for each variation yourself — at which point the entire thing could be reduced to a single page table with a list of variants to be substituted in. In fact, I have a 1960s cookbook where the entire section on baking cakes (a small appendix at the back of the book) consists of just that: basic instructions for the 'rubbing in method', the 'melting in method' etc, and a literal table in three columns listing different ingredients to be added at each of three stages to produce all the different possible recipes :-p
The introduction says that if a mug cake overflows, then it means the mixture has too much butter or else the mug is too small or narrow. I ditched the approximate measurements in the recipes (a half-inch slice of butter, six squares of chocolate), weighed out my ingredients and found that my previous attempt had resulted in about twice the quantity supposedly specified, and tried again. I tried standard mugs, wide mugs and extra-large mugs, and the recipe still overflowed -- and it was very sweet and oily. I wouldn't have thought it was possible for a chocolate cake to contain so much sugar and butter as to be distasteful, but apparently it is. (American tastes? But this isn't an American book, which was one of its attractions; 'mug cakes' on the Web tend to be written from a US perspective.)
The typical recipe from this book uses 1oz butter, 6 squares of chocolate, 5 tablespoons of flour, 2 tablespoons of sugar, a whole egg and half a teaspoon of baking powder. Comparable recipes on the Web (e.g. https://www.janespatisserie.com/2018/04/26/chocolate-mug-cakes/ which I haven't tried, and https://www.crazyforcrust.com/double-chocolate-peanut-butter-mug-cookie/ which I've used successfully on several previous occasions — omitting the chocolate chips and cutting the peanut butter down to 1tsp instead of 1 tbsp!) omit most or all of the egg, use unsweetened cocoa powder instead of melted chocolate, use 1 tablespoon of fat instead of 1 ounce, and less flour. And much less baking powder. With a whole egg plus half a teaspoon of baking powder, no wonder it overflows!
I experimented with reasonable success with a 'white chocolate and blueberry' cake by using 3tsbp of flour in place of five, 4 squares of white chocolate instead of eight (admittedly the 'squares' on my cheap-as-possible generic supermarket chocolate seem to be twice the size of hers), 1 tbsp of butter instead of 1 ounce, 1 tbsp + 1tsp sugar instead of 2 tbsp, 1 tbsp of milk in place of the egg and 1/4tsp of baking powder in place of 1/2 tsp (plus 5 blueberries). The result was pleasantly moist, still sweet and rich, and remained within the bounds of the cup!
An experiment at making the 'chocolate orange' cake using half quantities of chocolate with a whole egg, 1 tbsp marmalade and 5tbsp flour as directed, but less butter, sugar and baking powder, was less successful — it frothed to the top of the mug but seemed a bit dry afterwards. Possibly I should have cut down on the flour to allow for the reduced fat, or else I simply needed to reduce the cooking time...
At all events, the book is interesting as a source of ideas for possible combinations (e.g. white chocolate, chilli and raspberries), but the actual recipes aren't very helpful. The only real way to make use of it would be to work out your own practical 'basic recipe' and then add the extra ingredients for each variation yourself — at which point the entire thing could be reduced to a single page table with a list of variants to be substituted in. In fact, I have a 1960s cookbook where the entire section on baking cakes (a small appendix at the back of the book) consists of just that: basic instructions for the 'rubbing in method', the 'melting in method' etc, and a literal table in three columns listing different ingredients to be added at each of three stages to produce all the different possible recipes :-p
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Date: 2020-03-22 11:01 pm (UTC)