Chocolate Berry Mug Cake

This Chocolate Berry Mug Cake is a quick and easy way to get your chocolate fix! The bottom layer consists of a sweet and juicy berry sauce (that uses frozen berries!). Then, the berry sauce is topped with a rich, fudgy chocolate cake. Because this single-serve dessert is made in the microwave, the whole thing is ready in about 10 minutes!

Sometimes you're craving a special dessert and store-bought cookies or ice cream just won't do. If you're short on time or you don't want a ton of leftovers, that's a perfect time for a mug cake! And this Chocolate Berry Mug Cake is one of my absolute favorites. This is no ordinary mug cake - it pulls out all the stops! Fudgy chocolate cake with chocolate chips, AND a juicy, sweet berry sauce at the bottom of the mug!

Plus, you can make this dessert with mostly pantry ingredients and frozen berries. So, you can make this recipe without any pre-planning, and at any time of the year, as long as you've got a bag of berries stashed in the freezer!

Ingredients

Here's what you'll need for this Chocolate Berry Mug Cake:

• Frozen berries: any kind will do - I used a mix of raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. Cut up any large strawberries before using in the recipe.
• Granulated sugar
• All purpose flour
• Cocoa powder
• Baking powder
• Oil: any light oil will work, like vegetable oil or canola oil
• Milk: any kind, I used whole milk
• Chocolate chips: I highly recommend not leaving these out! They melt into the cake and help create a rich, fudgy texture. You can use any kind of chocolate chips you have in your cabinet. You could even substitute chunks of chopped chocolate if you don't have chips.
• Pinch of salt (not pictured)

Can I substitute fresh berries?

I will be totally honest - I have not tested this recipe using fresh berries. And that's simply because I can't get any at the moment! That being said, I don't see any reason why you couldn't use fresh berries, although it's likely the texture or amount of juiciness may be a little different. This will also depend on the kind of berry you choose.

If you want to use fresh berries, I would just microwave the berry layer for a much shorter amount of time - say, 15 seconds instead of 45. The berries at this stage just need to be juicy and the flour and sugar should be dissolved.

Hopefully, I will have the chance to give an update here when I'm able to make the recipe using fresh berries. Or, if you make the recipe with fresh berries, please let me know how it turned out!

Helpful tips

Here's a few helpful tips for making this Chocolate Berry Mug Cake:

• If you want to unmold the mug cake, spray the mug with non-stick spray before you add the first berry layer, making sure to get the sides really well! Or you can grease the mug with oil or butter. Also, I recommend pouring the batter over the berries slowly and gently, which will help keep the berries on the bottom rather than pushing them to the side. This way, when you unmold the cake, the berries will be beautifully displayed on the top!

• Next, make sure you mix the flour and sugar into the frozen berries really well before microwaving. You don't want any pockets of dry flour in the corner. It may not seem like all the flour and sugar will incorporate at first, but as you keep mixing, it will start to combine with the moisture from the berries. Mixing well at this stage will ensure the berry sauce is nice and smooth!

• Finally, in order to avoid a big mess in your microwave, you need to use a mug that's large enough. You don't need a huge one - the one I used holds 12 oz. and it fit the cake well. And make sure your mug is microwave safe!

Step-by-step guide

Here is what each step of making the mug cake looks like. The full ingredient amounts and instructions are in the recipe card at the bottom of the post, this is just to give you a visual idea of each step:

1. Add frozen berries, ½ tsp. flour and 2 tsp. sugar to the mug. The flour helps to thicken the berry sauce. (Greasing the mug first is optional - see helpful tips section!)
2. Keep stirring the berry, sugar and flour mixture until no dry pockets of flour and sugar remain.
3. Microwave for 45 seconds, or until berries are warm and juicy. Stir again.
4. In a separate bowl, mix together the remaining dry ingredients.
5. Add the wet ingredients into the dry.
6. Whisk with a fork until most of the lumps are gone. Add in the chocolate chips.
7. Pour the chocolate cake batter on top of the berries and microwave until done. The top should be firm with no wet parts remaining, check the sides too!
8. If you want to and you've greased the mug, try unmolding the cake into a bowl or plate. Enjoy!

I really hope you like this quick and easy chocolate mug cake! If you follow my blog at all, you may know I really, really love mug cakes. So of course, I have quite a few other mug cake recipes that I hope you will also try! My favorites are this recipe for Strawberry Shortcake Mug Cake and this one for Fudgy Mocha Mug Cake.

If you’ve tried this recipe for Chocolate Berry Mug Cake, please let me know what you thought about it in the comments down below, I would love to hear from you! You can also follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest to see more delicious recipes from Nibble and Dine!

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