On a regular base I get a late night craving for chocolate cake. In the past I've resorted to the ubiquitous microwave mug cakes but they never really worked for me and left me with the guilty feeling of having weeknight indulgence but without the chocolate satisfaction to balance it out.

A couple nights ago, I again found myself in a situation where my life could only go on, if it had chocolate cake in it. So I did some excessive research on the internet and decided to use a classic recipe for "Chocolate Lava Cake" or "Molten Chocolate Cake" and simply prepare it in the microwave.

Naturally, I came across the Food&Wine website and the original recipe by Jean-Georges Vongerichten, who invented the whole concept of chocolate cakes with a liquid center. I studied his recipe and decided to make it a bit simpler and easier to handle. You will still need more utensils and bowls than for a plain old mug cake, but the result is certainly worth the extra effort.

On my first attempt, I didn't make sure the cake was perfectly centered in the microwave, so it baked unevenly. I've also overbaked it slightly so the center wasn't as liquid as I would have wanted it to be. In all honesty, the oven baked version is much better than the microwave one. But with a heatwave going on, not having to heat my kitchen to approximately 450° seemed like a fairly great trade-off.