Magic Mug Cake

I don't know about you, but I love shopping in large supermarkets. The variety of wacky and interesting junk you can find there seems limitless. Many are worth browsing but occasionally one jumps aout and grabs you and you *have* to buy it.

So it was with the Magic Mug Cake! Pour the sachet into a mug, mix in an egg, microwave for 90 seconds, add your favourite topping for more fun - it just doesn't get much better than that! I was intrigued by this product. Only slightly less than the Folgers self-heating instant coffee that I bought from a supermarket in San Francisco last year. How does such a large amount of cake come from such a small sachet and only an egg? They're right - it must be magic!

Now the instructions are for a 660w microwave oven, so I figured that my mighty 1100w microwave should be dialed down to 60% and run for the same time.

With 10 seconds to go it was so far so good. As you can see on the left the cake was just peeking over the top of the mug - *magic*! As soon as the heat stopped, however, it sank right back down. It looked way to moist so I figured it needed some more time. After another 30 seconds it looked cooked - but not quite what the picture showed:

Thinking about the process, I think you must need the microwave power and time just right. I imagine that the process involves the cake bubbling up to it's maximum volume and then being 'snap-cooked' into that size/shape. Because I didn't let it run quite long/hot enough the first time the opportunity was lost.

Kath asked me how it tasted. "Just like cake" I said. "Yes, just like cake" she dubiously replied...