I was trying to think of a fun Design and Technology activity involving cooking that wouldn’t put too much of a strain on the rather tired old oven we have access to at school. That’s when I hit on microwave mug brownies.
They are super simple!
3 ingredients: 6 heaped teaspoons of icing sugar, 2 heaped teaspoons of cocoa powder, 1 egg.
Put the egg into a mug, add the dry ingredients and mix mix mix! Eventually your mixture goes gloopy and looks like brownie mix.
Remove the spoon and whack it into the microwave for a minute and a half. Done.
CAREFUL: When it comes out it will be steaming hot, and they often expand a lot while they are being heated. Keep an eye on them in the microwave. (I borrowed a couple of microwaves we had in the staffroom for the afternoon to do this activity)
First, I had my children design what toppings they would like on their brownie and how to arrange them to make their sweet treat look appealing. The objective was that they were supposed to be designing a sweet treat that they thought a parent or carer might like, and which could be made (with some supervision) by a child.
They also had the option to tip their brownie onto a paper plate and decorate it if they liked. I think this one was probably the most aesthetically pleasing brownie:
After they had made and eaten their brownie, the children reviewed the taste and appearance before coming up with any improvements they could make if they were to make it again.
I’ll be honest, there are better tasting brownies out there, but for only three ingredients it’s pretty lovely!
We of course had a chat about how this much sugar wouldn’t be a good thing to eat everyday, but this was supposed to be a one-off treat. Still, quite a few of my children said they thought it was too sugary and their improvement was to see if they could add less sugar. Although come to think of it, when they had it in front of them they all seemed keen to put on as much chocolate syrup and sprinkles as possible!
TIP: Make sure the children spend a good long time stirring their brownie thoroughly, otherwise you’ll end up with an unmixed crust at the bottom of the mug which will taste foul.