Ree Drummond’s Chocolate Sponge

I saw this one on TV the other day - Ree Drummond's cooking program "The Pioneer Woman". Ree's my favourite chef and blogger, I've been reading her blog for years, she's so funny and I especially love her all-American desserts, but had never picked up this one previously. Ree's chocolate sponge is so senselessly easy to make, and delicious. I thought anyone who's not normally bothered to follow recipes could just give it a try.

Why am I writing about this?

I'm an "ok" cook, not particularly fantastic. I'd experiment any ingredients as long as they're vegetarian but usually just throw in this much of pasta and chop this much of vegetables. Anything complicated, I don't bother. Let alone tell someone a recipe measure for measure. No, no.

I think I've mentioned this a while ago - I bake cakes "purely to eat". I have such a sweet tooth but supermarket cakes never satisfy me. Les gateaux from patisseries are too expensive for the amount I eat. I'm not worth the culinary arts! The only option left is to bake them myself which I don't particularly enjoy. "Baking can be relaxing, you know?" Yeah, whatever.

Anyway, this one. Shown in Ree's site as "Chocolate Cake In A Mug" - over here in the UK we probably call it a chocolate pudding. Or microwavable chocolate sponge. Do take a look at Ree's page, beautiful! So frankly why am I just re-listing her recipe here?

Because firstly I want to show you how ridiculously easy to make, and it tastes surprisingly decent. And more importantly, there's no Imperial/Metric measurement clash with this recipe.

Put those in a mug or a small bowl and mix. Then add:

Mix all again, and shove it in the microwave for 90 seconds.

That is it!

Here are the tips to remember.

We all experience troubles with different measurements from time to time, don't we? Recipes in different system are almost impossible to translate because obviously you need to convert all the ingredients.

We can probably manage ounce to gram/ml... Just. But Cups. What Americans measure in mass has to be converted in weight, is a pain. 1 Cup of sugar is around 200g, but 1 Cup of flour is much lighter.

I love peanut butter and maple syrup, neither flavour of which are particularly popular in the UK, so you don't find many recipes using these ingredients written by British. I love Ree's recipes and - considering how infrequently I properly cook - I took a drastic action and bought a set of measuring cups. Now I'm invincible trying her recipes. My neighbour's dying to know the recipe of a chocolate pie I make but - sorry, everything's in Cups!