3 Different Vegan Mug Cakes (No Eggs, No Milk)
For these mug cakes, I wanted the ingredients to be super accessible and use the least amount of fresh products as possible so that it’s more convenient during this quarantine period.
If you have easy access to milk, feel free to use it if you’re not vegan! I’m definitely not vegan myself, but I realized these recipes inadvertently turned out that way. Usually, milk is used in these mug recipes, but I find that water works surprisingly well – the water is interchangeable with milk because of the mug cake’s small scale. I compensated for the small loss of fat by adding a little more oil to these recipes.
It was also actually better not to include egg in these recipes because I found that eggs in very small amounts of cake batter result in a rubbery texture. Think about it: if a whole cake recipe only contains 1-3 eggs on average, why would a small mug cake need a whole egg? Without the egg, all of these mug cakes come out moist and fluffy.
Lastly, not overcooking them is also a key factor. Most often, the common complaint against mug cakes is over the texture; rubbery, hard, dry. This problem is solved by not using eggs and not cooking them longer than they need to be. Because there are no eggs, you can worry less about raw batter and be able to cook them in a shorter amount of time. I use a 1200-watt microwave, which is towards the high range, and I cook these at 1 minute and 10 seconds. If your microwave is lower wattage, I would do 1 minute and 20 to 30 seconds. You can check for doneness and cook them longer in 10-second intervals if you still feel it’s raw, but trust me: the less amount of time they spend in the microwave, the better. As long as the top is fully set, you are good!
As you look at these recipes, you might see a pattern of ingredient ratios – I used one recipe as a base to adjust for other variations of mug cakes. For example:
For the chocolate one, because cocoa powder acts a bit like flour, I decreased the flour from 4 Tbsp to 3. I found that you can go a long way with matcha than cocoa powder in terms of amount, so there was no need to adjust the flour.
For the lemon cake, because lemon juice is a liquid like water, I replaced some of the water with the juice!
Melted butter is interchangeable with the oil as well – but again, it’s not as accessible right now, along with not being vegan of course.
Once you play around with what ingredients contribute to what, you can customize to whatever ingredients you have at home!
Ingredients
Serves 1 each
Matcha Flavor:
4 Tbsp (30 g) all-purpose flour
1-1/2 tsp high quality matcha powder
2 Tbsp (25 g) granulated white sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
Small pinch of salt
3 Tbsp (45 ml) water
1-1/2 Tbsp (22.5 ml) vegetable oil
Chocolate Peanut Butter Flavor:
3 Tbsp (22.5 g) all-purpose flour
1-1/2 Tbsp (11 g) cocoa powder
2 Tbsp (25 g) granulated white sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
Small pinch of salt
3 Tbsp (45 ml) water
1-1/2 Tbsp (22.5 ml) vegetable oil
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 tsp chocolate chips (optional)
Honey Lemon Poppy Seed Flavor:
4 Tbsp (30g) all-purpose flour
2 tsp (8.5g) granulated white sugar
1/4 tsp baking powder
Small pinch of salt
2 Tbsp honey (42.5 g)
1 Tbsp (15 ml) lemon juice
2 Tbsp (30 ml) water
1-1/2 Tbsp (22.5 ml) vegetable oil
1 tsp poppy seeds (optional)
Instructions
In a small bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. (I prefer doing this in a separate bowl than the actual mug because I’ve had uncooked pockets of flour at the bottom of the mug before.)
Add the wet ingredients and whisk until smooth. Pour into mug.
If using add-ins like peanut butter, spread, chocolate chips, add that last by topping off the mug. (I like to drizzle or drop in peanut butter at the end, then top it off with chocolate chips without mixing.)
If using poppy seeds, mix it in with the batter before filling the mug.
Microwave for 1 minute 10 seconds (1200 watt microwave) until the top is just set. If you see raw batter, just pop it in for extra 10 second intervals as needed – but I imagine you wouldn’t need any longer than 1 minute 30 seconds.
Let it cook off for a minute and top off with ice cream or homemade whip cream.