Having found himself the biggest mug in the house (who wrote that?), Fidget is ready to rock and roll… 

Nutty mug cake

That’s because this recipe is not just any old recipe, it’s a ‘cake in a mug’ recipe. The inspiration comes from Mug Cakes (you guessed it!), by Lene Knudsen – a little collection of cute cake recipes that you can make in literally minutes using the microwave: a very practical solo one-pot. We’ve chosen the ‘nutty mug cake’ because it looked particularly yummy, but we were spoilt for choice really: chocolate, caramel, coffee, raspberry, green tea, more chocolate… the common denominator being the small amount of ingredients needed for a regular mug-sized cake.

The guidelines are for use with an 800W microwave and microwave-safe mug (nothing delicate or metallic, needless to say).

So let’s get started. You will need: 30g butter, 1 egg, 2 tbsp caster sugar, a few drops of vanilla essence, 1 tbsp single cream, 1 tbsp jam (apricot in the original recipe, we used raspberry), 5 tbsp plain flour, ½ tsp baking powder, 1 tbsp hazelnuts, 1 tbsp almonds, 2 tbsp pistachios.

Start by whizzing all the nuts together (setting aside 1 tbsp of the mixture for decoration). In a separate bowl melt the butter for 20 seconds. Then, in the mug, beat the ingredients one by one: egg, sugar, vanilla, cream, jam, flour, baking powder. Add the melted butter and chopped nuts (minus those set aside for decoration).

Microwave for 1 minute 40 seconds. Sprinkle with the remaining nuts and…tuck in!

To be fair, we found it makes for quite a substantial serving – not that this would challenge the likes of Fidget in the least. And because microwaved cakes dry out quickly and don’t keep, they do need to disappear pronto. Again, not a problem you say. Well then, bring on the next one: how about ‘melt-in-the-middle chocolate mug cake’? Yesss!!!