Microwaves: More from your microwave Microwave recipes: What can you bake in your microwave

Chocolate sponge cakes work well in microwaves

What to bake in your solo microwave

Fruit v sponge

Some cakes aren’t really good for microwave baking – the fruit in fruit cakes will burn, so avoid any cakes with this sort of rich recipe if you're using a solo microwave.

Sponge or madeira cakes are an excellent option for a microwave whether you cook them in small cases as fairy cakes or as a larger sponge.

Chocolate is best

A solo microwave is never going to brown your cakes, but adding a couple of tablespoons of cocoa or coffee will give your cake some colour and turn a Victoria sponge into a chocolate sponge. 

But if you ice your Victoria sponge, no-one will notice that the top isn’t browned. To finish your cakes, always leave them to stand for a minute or two – this allows the heat to be distributed evenly around the cake.

Baking pastries in your microwave

It's best to bake pastries in your conventional oven rather than a microwave – pastry needs to dry out while cooking and solo microwaves won’t be able to achieve such results.

Microwave cake recipes

Are microwave recipes different from oven recipes?

The ingredients used in cakes are going to be the same whether you bake in a microwave or a conventional oven. 

The main difference between a conventional oven recipe and a microwave recipe will be the cooking time, which is always going to be shorter in a microwave.

Microwave recipe books contain baking ideas

Microwave recipe books

If you're looking for a microwave cook book, you'll be able to pick one up on the internet for about a fiver. The following books are good for starters and all of them include sections on baking in your microwave:

• How to get the best from your microwave, by Carol Bowen includes plenty of recipes for cakes and desserts and is packed full of attractive photos. 
• The combination microwave cook, by Annette Yates and Caroline Young, 
• Microwave magic by Jennipher Marshall-Jenkinson, and 
• The combination and microwave handbook, again by Carol Bowen, is also helpful for novice microwave bakers.

Some of these books are quite old, however, and microwaves are generally more powerful today – so you'll probably need to reduce the cooking times a little if you have a modern microwave.

Microwave recipes on the internet

The internet is an excellent place to find microwave recipes – these sites are packed full of tasty recipes to try:

• Microwaves Technology Association A great resource with 60 + microwave recipes for everything from apple crumble to syrup pudding
• Cooking Corner Hundreds of cooking ideas and 40 + microwave baking and desert recipes alone
• Microwave recipes cookbook Packed full of recipes including 40 for cakes, deserts and puddings

Microwave chocolate cake recipe

This recipe is great for a decent-sized cake that's big enough for a family tea. 

Mixing the ingredients will take about five minutes, cooking takes seven minutes with one minute standing time.

Ingredients

175g margarine
175g caster sugar
150g sifted self-raising flour
40g cocoa powder
3 tablespoons of milk
3 medium eggs
1 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence

Method

Put all the ingredients in a bowl and mix together until light and fluffy. Alternatively, if you have a food processor, add all the ingredients to the bowl and process for about 60 seconds or until the ingredients are mixed together. Spoon the mix into a microwave-safe dish, cook on full-power for seven minutes and leave to stand for one minute. We used a 900 watt microwave.

Serving

You can serve warm with a dusting of icing sugar on top or cool and then cover with icing and your favourite toppings.