Wednesday, December 29, 2010

The Microwave Cupcake Disaster

I am having quite a day. I'm blaming the rain, because right now I need to blame something.

For those of you who don't know, I have 2 girls, one age 5 and in kindergarten and the other age 3. My 5-year-old has been on Christmas break since December 17 and doesn't go back until January 3, like all of the schools in the area. This is not unusual. What is unusual is the massive amounts of rain we've gotten in Southern California in the last 2 weeks. We usually get 1.31 inches of ran in December. We've gotten 3.68 inches. While neither number sounds high, if you think about it comparatively, we've gotten 3 times the normal amount of rain for the month. This has kept my girls cooped up quite a bit. Add the excitement of Christmas and New Years and we've got two balls of energy flying around an apartment that is less than 900 square feet. Not a good combination.

Which leads us to our recipe. I was in need of chocolate. Lots of chocolate. And while I was searching the web for something completely different, I stumbled on the idea of making cupcakes in the microwave using actual cups. This sounded wonderful. A quick dessert that could help save my sanity. Alas, it was not to be. Instead, it turned into a chocolate disaster.

Here's the recipe I made. I'd love feedback on how to fix it if any of you have suggestions. I will be trying to fix it myself, but not today.

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 Tablespoons butter, softened
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract


1. Don't preheat the oven. I didn't use it, although I wish I had!



2. In a large bowl, combine the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and sugar.


3. Next add the softened butter and eggs and beat well. It's going to look like that. A slightly damp, mushed up version of the dry ingredients.


4. Add the milk and vanilla and beat them in well. Now it looks more like a batter, although it was a little thin for batter. Maybe only a half a cup of milk next time??



5. Spray your mugs thoroughly with cooking spray to prevent the cupcakes from sticking (HA HA) and pour your batter into them. I have exceptionally tall coffee mugs, so I used 3. If you used normal sized mugs, I'd stick with 6. I also filled them about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way full. Another mistake, perhaps???

6. Bake in the microwave. The original recipes I found all called for 2 minutes, but since I had more batter I checked them at 2 and decided to microwave them for 4. Oh, at 100% power.


7. Disaster. In the microwave they overfilled and I ended up scrubbing chocolate goo off the tray. The cups were covered too. I bit into one right away and while the top was cooked, the insides were goo. I spent some time trying to clean up the mess and tried them again after about 10 minutes. Of the three, only one came out the way I wanted. They all tasted good, but only one even resembled a cupcake in texture.

There you have it. My baking disaster. And to top it off, that was the last of my unsweetened cocoa powder, so I can't even make regular chocolate cake like I had been planning. Ah well, live and learn.

So, what do you suggest for this recipe? Ever had one blow up in your face like this?

4 comments:

  1. THanks for joining in this week for Wobble Over Wednesday.

    I am now following you back :)

    -Amanda T
    http://mylifewithratsandmore.blogspot.com

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  2. Hi there! I am a new follower from the blog hop! Lovely blog:) You can find me at www.bouffeebambini.blogspot.com
    I love the idea of your blog by the way! I love baking!

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  3. Thanks for following from WOW.
    I am now following back
    http://grandmabonniescloset.blogspot.com/

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