Showing all posts in May 2018

The mug brownie concept is a God-send to any chocoholic who tries not to keep too much junk food in their house. You can mix one up if you really want it, but it’s not like a full batch of cookies, staring you in the face, shouting “Eat me, I’m wonderful.” The reality of mug brownies however, is that they never seem to capture that real brownie goodness. They’re nearly always on the cakey side, too sweet, and often they’re just too damn big. A brownie that fills up an entire mug sounds completely wonderful, but also sounds like mountain of sugar. For me, the point of a mug brownie is to have a quick, easy, single serve dessert that keeps me from baking an entire batch of brownies, that I can have every day without worrying that I’m eating more dessert than actual food.

I offer you the perfected concept: The Hot Fudge Mug Brownie. It’s small, rich, and honestly more like perfect, thick, dark chocolate sludge than an actual brownie, because I like mine reaaallly fudgey. Like basically undercooked. But there’s no egg in this one, so it’s totally fine. I’m aware that referring to food as “sludge” is perhaps not the most appealing – but it’s really the best word to describe the texture. Just remember, it’s rich, chocolate sludge.

There’s one more thing: Because this brownie isn’t overly-sweet, I top mine with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and frozen raspberries. Suddenly it’s a perfect little sundae in a cup that still only has about 160 calories, full flavor, and the added bonus of nutrition from the raspberries. You can literally have this for dessert every single day. It’s the most satisfying dessert you can make in 5 minutes, and a million times better than staring at a whole pan of brownies and trying to will yourself not to eat the entire thing. Unless you had a really terrible day – then I strongly advise you to eat as many brownies as you need to.

I tested this recipe at a couple of different lengths and microwave power settings, and found that a few seconds or a few hundred watts makes a fair difference in texture, so use the cooking guide that’s down with the recipe to get your mug brownie just right.