My School Kitchen – 5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake

At my High School I’m blessed enough to be able to teach a wonderful but small group of students who are so interested in learning anything and everything that sometimes it can make my job extremely hard but rewarding. I decided to mix it up a little and have some fun. It’s getting to that time of the year especially in my little town of Seongju where the big jackets start coming out and the ondol (Underfloor heating) gets turned on. So I decided to do something involving warmth and excitement as apposed to sitting in a freezing cold classroom with blank stares.

I’d been following a couple foodies on Pinterest and one recipe popped up. Cake in a Mug. I’ve seen it countless times with all sorts of variations of ingredients and techniques and decided it was now the time to try it out. I remember a couple years ago my sister and dad tried it out and much to their dismay it ended up being a gooey dense mess. It tasted great but I wanted to perfect it. Lucky for me someone already had! I found the recipe from the Instructables website and went ahead with planning my cooking day.

My girls would each bring a mug and an egg and wonderful Che teacher would bring the rest. Flour, Oil, Milk, Cocoa, Chocolate Chips and Sugar.

The day started out great going through the recipe and making sure they understood the process and then it was time to get stuck in and get messy!! The recipe is extremely easy to follow and exciting to put together. Here’s the Recipe for an average size mug.

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons flour 
  
• 4 tablespoons sugar
• 2 tablespoon cocoa
• 1 egg
• 3 tablespoons milk
• 2 tablespoons oil
• 3 tablespoons chocolate chips

According to the website it suggests that 1 egg is too much, 1 egg white is too eggy, 1 yolk is too dense, but 2 tblsp is just right! Unfortunately my students didn’t really understand why they couldn’t use the whole egg so it all went in lol.

1. Mix the flour, sugar and cocoa in the mug

2. Add the egg and mix extremely well.

3. Add the milk and oil and mix.

4. Once the mixture resembles a glossy fudgey goop you can add chocolate chips. We also added some mini snickers bars to ours.

5. Once that has all come together blitz it in the microwave for 3 minutes and boom your cake is done.

I really wanted to add in some delicious ice cream or even just whipped cream to the cakes but they were gobbled up pretty quick. I will definitely be making this at home this winter when my sweet tooth starts a calling, you should try it too!

Sylvia enjoying her cake

My School Kitchen – Jjimdak at School (찜닭)

At my wonderful High School in Korea I teach some amazing girls. They are the elite students in their grade and they come to me to practice their english and learn about Western culture. I decided one day to turn the lesson around on them and have them teach me something. Our topic was food. I wanted them to teach me how to make some Korean dish and turn the whole experience into a bit of a cooking show.

We decided the name of the show was going to be “Call me Hungry” and the dish they would teach would be Jjimdak. One of the students got her great grandmothers Jjimdak recipe and they all compiled a script together which they would present and I would film. Here is the wonderful script they wrote about Jjimdak including the recipe.

“Hi and welcome to our show, Call me Hungry.

We are High School students at Seongju Girls High School in South Korea. We would like to take this opportunity to teach you a bit about our amazing country. We have started our own cooking show so that we can introduce our delicious food to foreigners and show them how to make it.

Today on our menu we are going to be making Jjimdak. Jjim in Korean means. Steamed or Braised and Dak means chicken. Jjimdak is a very popular dish which originated in the town of Andong in South Korea. Andong Jjimdak is made with chicken, various vegetables, noodles and a spicy soy based sauce.

Now we are going to introduce the ingredients and equipment needed for preparing this dish.

Firstly you’ll need.

1 whole fresh chicken cut into pieces.

3 Cups of Water

1 Small bag of Cellophane Noodles

2 Potatoes

1 Carrot

1 Onion

1 Green & 1 Red Pepper

And 1 Leek or Green Onion

To make the spicy sauce you’ll need

2 Tablespoons of Gochujang (which is a Korean Spicy Red Pepper Paste)

4 Tablespoons of Thick Soy Sauce

3 Tablespoons of Cooking Wine

3 Tablespoons of sugar

And 2 Tablespoons of Minced Garlic

The equipment you will need for this recipe is

A Stove

A Large pan

Plastic bowls

A large spoon

A knife

A cutting board

A cup

A teaspoon

And a tablespoon

Alright so now we have everything together. Let’s get cooking!!.

The first thing we will do is take the chicken pieces and put them in a pot filled with water. You will need to bring the water to the boil and boil the chicken for about 10 minutes. This helps remove some of the fat and other things from the chicken. After the 10 minutes drain the chicken and set aside.

Now we can take the cellophane noodles and place them in some hot water so they will be easier to use later.

Time to make the sauce. Take all the sauce ingredients and mix them together in a bowl.

Once the sauce is finished put the chicken back into the pan, add the cut up vegetables, cover it with the sauce as well as 3 cups of water and bring it to the boil.

Cook the chicken and vegetables for about 15 minutes then add the noodles. Once the noodles are cooked your Jjimdak is ready to be eaten. Decorate it with some more peppers and some sesame seeds.

Join us again next time for some more Korean cooking tips and ideas.

The END”

This experience was such fun and I really had a great time learning about Jjimdak and how to prepare it. Some of my teachers also recommended to me to put in some Soju or even Coke to tenderize the Chicken even more. I then made my own at home and it ended up being good but not that great. I think the enthusiasm and dedication from my girls made their Jjimdak stand out above all.

My AMAZING Girls