The few times I’ve tried this it’s ended up as a sludgy, inedible, hard-to-clean mess. I may be doing something wrong, but it seems to me to be far more effective to just make a regular sized pan of brownie mix in the oven and then have leftover brownies for a week.
Alton Brown has a recipe for mug cupcakes that are baked in the oven, as a cupcake should be. I’ve retired my microwave, but even when it worked, I would never deign to try to “bake” in the microwave. That just makes no sense. If you want your baked goods to come out all dry and rubbery, then nuke away. However, Brown’s Chiffon Cupcakes are to die for. (I sliced mine in half horizontally and ice the middle layer and the top. I also added peanut butter chips to my recipe, which took these little buggers to a whole other level.)
El Bulli’s Albert Adria had a 40-second sponge cake that was absolutely brilliant. He did it in a paper cup & just cut it away when it was done cooking.
You’ll need some specialized equipment (N2O canister), but it’s an awesome end product. Easy to find on Google, I think.
OK, I just heard of mug cakes from Little Miss D18, who was telling me that they’re all the rage among her friends. Yesterday, I was desperate for a bran muffin, didn’t have time to make a full batch, so pulled up a recipe and had it made in, oh, 4 minutes. I had very low expectations, but I gotta say, it turned out much better than I thought it would and would be happy to make it again in similar circumstances.
Anyway, in the three years since this thread, any more dopers experimented with this - and if so, got any good recipes?