5-Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

Chocolate mug cake and ice cream for one – Need I say more? This mug cake recipe is a five-minute-microwave hero when a chocolate craving hits. 

Chocolate Mug Cake with Chocolate Chips

I don’t often have a reason to bake a cake and even if I think, “well, I don’t need a reason!” baking a big cake for myself is just a bad idea. It means I will either eat the entire thing or end up throwing most of it away. Depending on the outcome, it’s either an exercise in excessiveness or wastefulness and so there hasn’t been a lot of homemade cakes in my life.

And then I talked to my best friend who told me people use their microwaves to cook things. Not just to reheat leftovers, or nuke a frozen meal, but real cooking where you combine raw ingredients, toss them in the microwave, and, voila, dinner or dessert (or both!) is served. It was a revelation.

Turns out, my microwave could deliver what I thought was out of reach: a single-serve chocolate mug cake that’s fast and easy. Plus, there’s no risk of a chocolate overdose followed by the day-after self-hate that goes with a regular-sized cake. The moderation is built right in.

A Mug and a Microwave

It really is as simple as combining a few ingredients in a mug and popping it in the microwave, but if you need a visual reference you must watch this Lucky Peach video. Not so much for the detailed steps, but more for the quirkiness of it that might make you smile.

I adapted this same recipe here  – I switched a few things up like cream for milk, butter for oil, and a nice dollop of ice cream to finish it off.

Decadence, it seems, is the order of the day.

Ingredients and Recipe Tips

• A 10 to 12-ounce microwave-safe mug
• Melted butter
• An egg
• Heavy cream
• All-purpose flour
• Granulated sugar and unsweetened baking cocoa (using dark cocoa powder makes it extra rich!)
• Vanilla
• Chocolate chips

Combine all of the wet ingredients in the mug. Add the dry ingredients and stir just until the batter is combined.

Technically this is a molten chocolate mug cake but it’s not like a lava cake which has a very liquid center. Instead, you pile the chocolate chips on top of the batter – when the cake is cooking it will puff up and cover the chocolate chips which will melt into the cake. When you dig in there will be small pockets of melted chocolate just under the top of the cake.

You can also just stir the cakes into the batter but you won’t get as many pockets of melted chocolate.

Tips for Cooking the Mug Cake

Don’t overmix the batter. Just stir until it comes together and be sure to scrape the sides of the mug so all of the flour and cocoa powder are mixed in.

I’ve made this mug cake in a few different microwaves and it usually takes 2 minutes. Every microwave is different so I recommend that you start at one minute and then cook it in 30-second increments checking it each time.

The cake is done when the top is fully cooked and springs back when you lightly press it.

The cake will be very hot so let it stand for several minutes before digging in.

This recipe makes one large chocolate mug cake that’s perfect for sharing – or keep it all to yourself!

Happy microwaving,

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📣 Do you love this recipe? I would love to know! Leave a comment below the recipe along with your recipe star rating.

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The nutrition information in this recipe is an estimate only and was calculated using Nutrifox, an online nutrition calculator.