Chocolate Orange Mug Cake: Halloween's Easiest Pudding

An orange pumpkin-design mug holding a risen, dark chocolate sponge, with a teaspoon dug into the top showing a molten chocolate centre. It stands on slate against a plum-purple backdrop next to an or

Two sleeps until Halloween, and the bowl of sweets by our front door has already been "quality checked" more times than any of us would admit.

So here's something for once the door's shut and the last tiny witch has gone home: a chocolate orange cake, made in a mug in the microwave. It takes less time than finding a torch with working batteries. It's orange and dark like a jack-o'-lantern, and you can eat it on the sofa.

Makes 1 · About 5 minutes · No oven

Time5 minutesMakesone mugMade in#Pumpkin Mug

Ingredients

  • 30g self-raising flour (about 4 tbsp)
  • 15g cocoa powder (about 2 tbsp)
  • 35g caster sugar (about 3 tbsp)
  • A small pinch of salt
  • 1 medium egg
  • 3 tbsp milk
  • 2 tbsp sunflower oil, or melted butter
  • Finely grated zest of half an orange
  • 1 tbsp orange juice (from the same orange)
  • 2 squares of chocolate orange, or plain dark chocolate
An empty orange pumpkin mug on slate, ringed by small bowls and spoons of flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, milk, oil, orange zest and juice, plus an egg, two chocolate squares and a half-zested orange, agai
Everything you'll need

Method

  1. Step 1
    Put the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt into a large microwave-safe mug and mix them with a fork.
    Hands mixing flour, cocoa and sugar with a fork inside the pumpkin mug.
  2. Step 2
    Crack in the egg and beat it into the dry mix until there are no dusty bits left.
    A fork beating an egg into the cocoa mixture in the pumpkin mug.
  3. Step 3
    Add the milk, oil, orange zest and juice, and stir until smooth. Get right into the bottom edges, where flour likes to hide.
    Milk being poured into the pumpkin mug as a fork stirs the batter smooth.
  4. Step 4
    Push the two squares of chocolate down into the middle of the mixture.
    Fingers pushing a square of chocolate into the raw batter in the pumpkin mug.
  5. Step 5
    Microwave on full power for 1 minute 15 seconds to 1 minute 45 seconds. Microwaves vary, so check at the shorter time. It's ready when it has risen and the top looks just set.
    A fingertip testing the risen, just-set chocolate sponge in the pumpkin mug.
  6. Step 6
    Leave it to stand for a minute or two, because the molten middle is properly hot.
    Hands setting the hot, risen mug cake down to stand, with a spoon waiting beside it.

Tips

  • Use a big mug and make sure the mixture comes no more than halfway up, because it rises a lot before it settles down.
  • Don't cook it too long. Ten seconds too many and you've got a chocolate orange bath sponge. A slightly gooey middle is what you're after.
  • No orange in the fruit bowl? A few drops of orange extract with an extra tablespoon of milk works nicely.
  • A spoonful of crème fraîche or a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top is lovely. I'd skip squirty cream, which melts into a puddle before you've found a spoon.
  • Sharing is possible but not advised. If you want two, make two separate mugs. Doubling it in one mug cooks unevenly.

Mugs to make it in

It's Halloween weekend, so the mug had to be orange in spirit at the very least. We made ours in our #Pumpkin Mug, and a chocolate orange cake inside a pumpkin mug felt about right. It's a fairly ridiculous thing to be pleased about, but we were.

If you're baking for more than one, these from the Halloween Mugs collection would do the job, so long as the mug you're using is microwave-safe:

  • Pumpkins Field Mug, for whoever in the house gets most excited about pumpkin season and has photos of a patch to prove it.
  • I'm With Spooky Mug, for the person sat next to you on the sofa, pretending they're not about to pinch your pudding.
  • My Little Pumpkin Mug, for the smallest member of the family to have their hot chocolate in once the trick-or-treating's done. Leave the cake to the grown-ups, maybe.

Then there's the one that fits a mug cake a bit too well: the I Made A Cupcake But I Eated It Mug. You'll understand at about the second minute of standing time, when you've decided it's "probably cool enough" and it isn't..

For anyone who'd make it in any mug at all, as long as it ends in cake, there's a whole shelf of Food & Cooking Mugs too.

And after Saturday?

This one doesn't stop being good when the pumpkins go soggy on the doorstep. Bonfire Night is next week, and a hot chocolate orange cake goes down well after standing in a cold field going "ooh" at fireworks. If someone you know is happiest wrapped up with a sparkler, have a look at our Bonfire Night Mugs.

Happy Halloween from all of us. Save us a square of the chocolate orange, if there's any left.

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