chocolate cake in a mug

a few years ago at a work christmas party, a coworker had an idea which i thought was both unique and ingenius. ingenius yes, but as i found out tonight apparently not unique. she brought in chocolate cake that she had made in coffee mugs that had a christmas theme. when we were done eating the cake, we got to take home the christmas mugs home as our christmas gift from her so she ingeniusly managed to bring her requisite food item for the party and our christmas gifts all in one shot. i've always thought it was a great idea. but, i lost the recipe she gave me and never thought to look it up on the net.

i have several boxes of cake mix in my kitchen cabinets that i am trying to use up before they expire(got them with free coupon print outs at the checkout the a previous customer left behind). so, i thought might look up recipes for cake in a mug on the net as a way of making individual cake for me as i am off work today and tomorrow meaning i have no one to help me eat the cake. i found several cake in a mug recipes which i broke down into 3 basic recipes. the first recipe is based on boxed cake mix and can be set to make up for gifts or to use cake mix individuals for singles. here's an example of one of those recipes http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cake-in-a-Mug/Detail.aspx. the second one is from scratch and uses super simple ingredients such as hot cocoa mix, flour, an egg, oil, and water. this is by far the easiest recipe, and the one using ingredients many of use would have in our pantry anyone would have around even if you don't bake much. this is one of these http://howto.wired.com/wiki/Make_Cake_in_a_Mug. the third type uses ingredients people who bake frequently would have such as cake flour. http://www.dizzy-dee.com/recipe/chocolate-cake-in-5-minutes is one of these.

so, i tried the second type cause the idea of making cake in a microwave with hot cocoa seemed pretty cool. i only amended it by adding a few drops of peppermint extract. the pic at the top is my attempt at this recipe. reading forum responses to this some people complained about this cake being dry. i would actually disagree or recommend adding more oil the next time if one has this problem. in fact, it was moist enough that i didn't add any icing. fun and easy. plus, this only takes 3 minutes to cook and even with prep less than 5 minutes to make. good solution to quell a sweet tooth.