Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup

I have often heard of Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup. I have friends who have made it and said it was surprisingly delicious, but I have never actually done it myself. Well, I have this thing for doing things right. It's a bit of a perfectionist streak I have. If I'm not going to do it right, why do it at all. Therefore, when I make a meal, I like to go all out, and make it a nice meal. This usually includes dessert. :P

I had planned Beef Stroganoff for dinner (see previous post) and it was bubbling delightfully in the crockpot when I decided I really ought to have something for dessert. Into my head popped the idea of Chocolate-Cake-In-A-Cup. I quickly looked it up online and found several recipes for it. Very common recipe, I discovered, but thankfully they all pretty much listed the same ingredients.
4 Tablespoons each of flour and sugar, 2 Tablespoons of cocoa, an egg, and 3 Tablespoons each of milk and oil. Some recipes also listed an optional 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla and a small handful of chocolate chips. We were out of chocolate chips, but I did use the splash of vanilla.

Since there were four people in the house for dinner that night, I got out four mugs.



















I put in the first three, dry ingredients first, and mixed them together.




















Then I added the egg. The recipe said to mix it after the egg, but i found that that just made it pasty and sticky, so I waited until I'd added the other wet ingredients before trying to stir it.

















I added the milk and oil, and a tiny splash of vanilla (emphasis on tiny... one of the cups I added a bit too much to, and the taste was a bit off. Not bad, just not as good as it could have been >_<)

















I put the mugs on a plate and microwaved them on high for 3 minutes. I did each mug separately, since that's what the recipe called for, and I didn't want to mess with trying to do more than one at once.


























Once I got them out of the microwave, I let them sit for a minute, to cool off, then dumped them out of the mug. Add a bit of whipped heavy cream and voila! Insta-dessert!



















They tasted really good! Perhaps not as good as traditional chocolate cake, but for what they were, they were delicious. I did wish I'd had chocolate chips to put in them, or some chocolate sauce to drizzle on top, but ah well. I also am not sure they'd taste nearly as good if they weren't fresh and hot.
All in all, it was a success, and I'd definitely make it again. :)