Microwave Viennese biscuits

Instant biscuits ... almost. Yes, microwave cooking is cheating but these turned out pretty well and I'm happy to cheat for a quick fix! They're sweet, soft and melty but you have to get the cooking time right otherwise they burn in the centre and you don't know until you take a bite!

Microwave Viennese biscuits

6 dsp flour
6 dsp margarine
3 dsp icing sugar
2 dsp cornflour

Mix everything together and shape into biscuits. Microwave for four minutes. Leave to stand for a minute and then test a biscuit. It should be a little crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. The centre will firm up when it cools. Put them in for another minute if necessary but don't overcook them.

Chocolate mug cake

So I carved my first pumpkin of the year. Okay, so he's not a work of art but I think he's sweet. I tried to make him extra friendly looking so as not to frighten Tabitha.

This evening I really fancied pudding, more specifically, chocolate cake. I had a lot of stuff to do so baking a cake wasn't an option. Fortunately I have this killer recipe for chocolate mug cake. It takes just three minutes from walking into the kitchen to skipping back out again with your cake. I use white flour and leave out the sugar because the drinking chocolate is sweet enough. I wish I had known about this recipe when I was a student. I used to save money by not buying chocolate and making chocolate cake instead. But then I used to also save time so that I would have more time to study (ha ha, blatant lie) by microwaving it instead of baking it. It was usually just about edible but certainly not delicious. But then my chocolate cravings were so strong that I'd have eaten anything with cocoa in. I even ate it once when I managed to melt the cake into the plastic plate I'd used. I did eat round the melted bit. Anyway, chocolate mug cake - very nice and definitely worth making and far better than my student efforts.

P.S. The cream in the photo is cashew cream. I won't link to the recipe because it wasn't actually all that great! I'm on the look out for a better one.