Chocolate cake in a cup

This is so lame. SO very lame...but it has been the hit of the weekend (and in all fairness? It IS good.)

My mom sent this; I'm guessing some recipe site sent it to her. The point was that maybe the kids would have fun with it, so this afternoon when The Nice Kid checked her email and found it, she decided it was too cool not to try. And it WORKED. It made a mess...it runs over in the microwave and we had to leave the cup in the sink to soak but for the effort involved? This is great. And the Wow! factor is cool.

Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

1 Coffee Mug, lightly sprayed with cooking oil
4 tablespoons flour (that's plain flour, not self-rising)
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
Small splash of vanilla

Add dry ingredients to mug and mix well. (The mug TNK used is slightly oversized, but nothing special.) Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well. Add the chocolate chips if using (TNK couldn't find any so we didn't use them) and vanilla, and mix again. (If you have it, Madagascar vanilla would STAR here.) Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts (we have a small microwave and it took six minutes.) The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but that's okay. Allow to cool a little and tip out onto a plate if desired; we ate it out of the cup with a scoop of vanilla ice cream in the first bite space.

Flourless chocolate torte (and I don't DO sweets!)

Well, in the phone conversations over the morning we have this hodgepodge of a dinner on track. I guess. But there's no dessert THAT I KNOW OF so...here. Too, too easy and this is a groaner. Which is why I'm sharing the recipe because NO. I won't make you six for a fundraiser because BEEN THERE! DONE THAT!

Flourless Chocolate Torte

11 tablespoons butter
1 cup sugar
3 large eggs
1-1/2 cups ground pecans
3/4 cup cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 ounces dark chocolate chips
1 cup whipping cream
2 teaspoons Madagascar vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease and flour an eight-inch springform pan. Or cake pan. Melt butter and remove from heat. Stir in pecans, sugar, cocoa, salt and one teaspoon vanilla. Add eggs and beat well. Pour into pan and bake 25 minutes. Cool in pan 10 minutes, then remove and cool completely. Melt chocolate chips. Whip cream, fold in melted chocolate and one teaspoon vanilla. Top the torte with the whipped cream. If you have a dark chocolate candy bar somewhere in the house, either use a vegetable peeler or a grater and shave chocolate onto the top of the torte. That overkill thing, you know. Keep refrigerated.

Be careful with the pecans if you're grinding them yourself...you can end up with pecan butter. Better is to buy "pecan meal" which is not only exactly what you need but costs about 1/4 of pecan halves.

You can go onto eBay and buy these...pans. They are called well, I don't know what they're called but the pan is an Ekco Baker's Secret. It says Duncan Hines/Tiara Desserts. The edges are fluted and the center is raised, so when you invert the torte the entire center is sunken and then you fill it in with the chocolate whipped cream. This works.

This keeps well...when The Child From The Defective Gene Pool got married I made 14 of these. Ahead of time. Then the caterer filled them with the whipped cream come serving time and they actually ended up saving us...THE WEDDING CAKE DIDN'T SHOW UP, and the fact that we had a dessert table saved the night. That and my lovely talented friend of The Construction Company because as soon as we realized what had happened he raided the freezer at Winn Dixie, created a cake out of thin air and fresh flowers, and no one knew but us!