Another mug cake

[betweensunandmoon]

It was a vanilla cake this time. It came out okay texture-wise, but ended up tasting rather strongly of coconut because the recipe called for coconut oil, and I hate coconut. Olive oil was the only other kind we had, though, and I doubt that would have worked any better.

Comments

[igenlode]

When they call for coconut oil, they're usually vegans attempting to avoid butter :-p
(One of the benefits of coconut oil, as I understand it, is that it goes solid.)

So melted butter or margarine should be fine.

[betweensunandmoon]

This was the recipe I followed, and coconut oil was the only one of the recommended oils I had. It's possible I used too much, but it is not flavorless, so I don't know where the author's getting that. It does indeed go solid, and can be used as a substitute for butter.

[igenlode]

'vegetable oil' is the other name for rapeseed oil (made from oilseed rape, which presumably people get squeamish about marketing because they're frightened of being accused of sexual assault or something :-p)
In fact good-quality sunflower oil isn't flavourless either; I've had expensive sunflower oil, and it tastes like sunflower seed. So it's not surprising that coconut oil tastes of coconut.

Does your household exist only on extra-virgin olive oil, or do you have normal oil to cook with? What the recipe is basically saying is that you should use any cheap oil you have to hand, rather than super-expensive salad oil. But I notice that several people in the comments say they used butter...

[betweensunandmoon]

Does your household exist only on extra-virgin olive oil, or do you have normal oil to cook with?
Just olive oil and coconut oil, since they're supposedly healthier than other kinds of oil. :P I don't particularly care about that, but my parents sure do.

Silly me, I didn't even think of using butter!

[igenlode]

I just tried the recipe with butter -- strictly in a sense of scientific enquiry, of course! -- and wasn't very impressed. It didn't taste of vanilla at all, despite my using double the amount of vanilla essence due to other people commenting they couldn't taste it, and the flavour was oily and uninteresting. It might have been better with a pinch of salt, and it may have been undercooked; I gave it 2 minutes at 800W, and it rose above the top of the mug and then collapsed again. It may have suffered from my skimping on the sugar, which tends to be an important textural component in cake mixture as opposed to an optional sweetener.

Or it may have been intended to resemble an American muffin, which tend to taste oily and uninspiring :-p

[betweensunandmoon]

Well, thank you for sacrificing your time and ingredients in the name of science.

Or it may have been intended to resemble an American muffin, which tend to taste oily and uninspiring :-p
Huh. You might be right, now that I think about it.

I just gave the lemon-poppyseed mug cake another try, using twice as much lemon juice this time, and it was a lot better, though my mother said it still wasn't lemony enough for her taste.

I'll master the art of the mug cake one day, I swear. :P

[igenlode]

You really need lemon rind to give the flavour -- the juice isn't nearly so powerful.

I had a successful lemon mug cake recipe that uses the juice and zest of half a lemon (plus a lot of sugar to compensate for the sourness). The main trouble is directing the grater towards the rather narrow aperture at the top of a mug ;-)

[betweensunandmoon]

Thanks for the tip!