spiced mug cake

Did anyone just read “mug cake” and gasp in horror?

If you’ve been a long time Spill the Beans reader, you know that in the very beginning I had a love-affair-bordering-on-addiction with mug cakes. Specifically, one recipe for a chocolate mug cake that I used to eat every night.

Until on one horrible evening I discovered that I was consuming about 900-something calories and 48 grams of fat in one little mug. I don’t know what I expected when I was pouring vegetable oil into it, but after that I quit cold turkey.

My thought process behind reverting back to a mug cake for this particular recipe was that I really just wanted a small serving. As much as I love spice cake, I don’t want to eat the leftovers of it 3 days later.

I’ll eat a chocolate chip cookie that has been sitting behind the refrigerator for 6 months, but spice cake that’s been sitting out? No thanks.

After I went out and bought all my spices I really wanted to use them for something. So this has teeny tiny amounts of cardamom, nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice. If you don’t have all of those things you can mix and match, or just use cinnamon.

The recipe clocks in at about 450 calories which might still seem like a lot, but when you eat cookie dough by the fistful this is basically diet food.

Spiced Mug Cake

adapted from Five Heart Home

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons whole wheat flour

2 tablespoons brown sugar

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp cinnamon

pinch each of cardamom, nutmeg, and allspice

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons melted butter

1/4 cup milk (I used unsweetened vanilla almond milk)

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

Melt the butter. I melted it right in the mug that I was going to use to “bake” the cake. Combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, spices, and salt in a small bowl. Pour the melted butter, almond milk, and vanilla extract in and stir to combine.