Coffee Cup Cakes

The Columbian keeps publishing odd little recipes that attract my interest. This week it was these recipes for little coffee cup cakes. The idea is to make little one-serving cakes that you can bake in the microwave. I know,  it may not count as true baking, but it certainly sounds fun, doesn't it? Here's some documentation of the experiment, done in more of a true food-blogger style with some shots of the steps involved.

I decided to try the coffee cup upside-down cake. 

As with 'real' upside-down cakes, this one has fruit at the bottom of the baking dish.

Chopped apples 

The apples are mixed with butter and brown sugar and "baked" in the microwave.

Then it's time to whip up a single-serving of the batter.

Poured into the mug over the apples.

A minute in the microwave does the trick, and voila!--a single serving of upside-down cake.

Flipped out of the cup, with the apples on top. Yum! 

Christina decided to try the coffee cup coffee cake (wait, isn't that kind of redundant?).

Hers had a yummy streusel topping.

Whipping up her batter, which was fairly similar to mine.

Hers puffed quite a bit in the microwave. We giggled as we watched the streusel start sliding down the cup as it 'baked.' 

And there you have it--a single serving coffee cake.

Yummy!

It was interesting making a recipe with such small proportions (1/4 cup of flour, a few drops of vanilla, a couple tablespoons of butter). It made me realize, though, why we usually make recipes in larger quantities (other than, of course, the need to feed more people). Making tiny recipes doesn't eliminate the steps required to make something, just the amount of finished product. By the time you're finished, it's nice to have enough to last for several servings. It makes the whole process seem more worthwhile. 

All the same, it was a fun experiment. We'll probably do it again sometime.

Here's the article where we found the recipes: http://www.columbian.com/news/2012/apr/24/love-in-a-cup-ingredients-by-the-drop-cooking-time/.