Mug O' Nuked Cake

With the wife out of town, the crappy weather (SNOW in April is just plain rude) and all my on-line courses completed for the day (there's only so many of those you can do before you become delirious AND the before governing bodies start to get suspicious of how the hell you did all those courses in one day), I decided I needed a snack.  As I'm feeling a need for something warm and comforting but simple enough that nothing will go wrong while the wife is away, I decided on the "Healthier Cake in a Mug" recipe.

You've probably heard of a Cake in a Mug--it's an amazing thing that takes three minutes to make in the microwave.  Well, this is the same thing except somehow it is supposed to be healthier, or so says Pot Holder Grrrrrl.  I don't care if it's healthier or not; I just want some warm cake with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream on it and not have any baking disasters while making it.

Note to the wanna-be vegan in me: That scoop of ice cream and one egg in the cake is so screwing up the vegan intentions.  Ah well, my drive-through breakfast yesterday was nowhere near vegan and there was a witness, so I can't deny it: I was on the cell phone with a co-worker doing on-call business when it was my turn to order.  I asked her to hold on and then proceeded to order my not healthy-not-vegan-at-all breakfast.  When I got back to my co-worker, I said "Sorry about that! Thanks for waiting."  To which she replied, "THAT didn't sound very vegan."  I don't think she heard me order the cookies but I know she heard the egg product and extra cream in the coffee.  The road to hell......paved with good, vegan intentions.

I digress.  Back to my Mug O' Nuked Cake.  If you've never made a cake in a mug and you are too lazy to go to the store and buy a cake (or, heaven forbid, actually bake a real cake), you should try it.  You make it from scratch, which makes it all the more fun.  I wouldn't make a cake from scratch but I will certainly make one in a mug from scratch.  (There are a ton of recipes on line for mug cakes.  Google for one that suits your mood and needs.) Anyways, I have all the ingredients assembled in the cupboards, as I can't be messing around looking for things when the mood for a mug of cake comes along.  This time, I actually had dark chocolate morsels on hand AND real vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer, so I knew it would be a banner cake.  I mixy-fixied the ingredients (kinda sorta measuring--I've learned in baking I have to measure), plop it in the microwave, wait three minutes and Wa-la! Cake!

I was going to take a photo of the cake getting nuked for blogging purposes, but I was too lazy to do so....you'll have to settle for stock photos gleaned off the net.  Mine didn't look nearly half as pretty as this one and I didn't involve powdered sugar, but you get the idea.

It is an amazing thing, this nuked cake is.  It puffs up over the top of the mug but doesn't run down the sides.  It's mighty tasty in a pinch.  It slides right out of the mug (an event I still do not understand)......you don't even have to take it out of the mug--you can eat it while it's still in the mug.  Genius!

Okay, okay--if you are looking for a scrumptious piece of home-made cake, this is NOT the way to go.  It does have a weird texture.  It is an insult to "real" bakers and it's not going to put any bakers out of business.  It's not something you are going to serve at your next birthday party. It looks like a giant turd when you pour it out of the mug. But, it's perfect for an "It's Snowing in April" kind of blustery day.  I sucked that puppy down, all two servings of it, smiling the whole way, ice cream dripping delightfully down the sides of the warm turd before me.

As for the wife, she took her ruptured disk for a road trip to celebrate her mama's marker birthday.  I'll be kind and not identify which birthday it is.  (I highly doubt they are eating cake in a mug at the festivities.)  The wife had an MRI yesterday and it showed a ruptured disk big enough to see from St. Louis if you were standing in Chicago.  Next week, she'll have to mosey on over to a neurosurgeon; but, for today, she'll party in the Cheddarlands.

The wife is very relieved: "See? Now people will believe me!"  I don't know who she thought didn't believe her--well, besides the moron doctor that told her two months ago that "this just needs to run its course."  Now that she's seen it and can show tangible proof to other people, she seems incredibly relieved.  The pain is still intense but there is some psychological component that seems soothed....so soothed that she didn't even think twice about making the trip north of the Cheddar Curtain.

Had she stayed home, I would have made her a nuked mug of cake.  Why, here's a photo of said ruptured disk demanding one of my nuked confectionery products.  Never mind that she is eating delicious, home-made food products that send my salivary glands into overdrive just thinking about them.  Those Cheeseheads know how to cook....

But, I bet they've never made a cake in a mug....and, I've heard Cake in a Mug can cure almost anything.  I'll see if I can cure the wife. 
Cured my veganism, that's for sure.
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