Review and Recipe: Savory Spice Shop and Chocolate Mug Cake

This blog post will be a bit unusual, in that it’s both a review and a recipe! Hopefully, you will find both enjoyable and useful.

I grew up outside of Boulder, Colorado, a city that is home to some of my favorite small businesses in the world. One of those businesses is Savory Spice Shop. Born in Denver, Savory Spice is run by a few people who are very passionate about cooking and baking. I’ve been into their Boulder store more times than I can count, and each time I’ve found cool new flavors to add to my cooking along with helpful people who are always willing to share advice on the best ways to take advantage of those flavors. Their online customer service is also excellent.

One of the great things about Savory Spice is that in addition to your standard array of herbs, spices, and salts, they also do great gift sets. Every Christmas, my parents get me a new box of spices to add to my collection. These can be pre-made themed sets, such as Curry Up or Ultimate Pit Boss, or you can make your own custom box. They even take orders for things like wedding favors and corporate events.

Of course, the most important thing about any spice store is the quality of their spices. I have yet to be anything less than impressed by the quality of Savory Spice’s products. Their herbs and spices are always fresh and full of flavor. Their spice blends are unique and complex without being overpowering. They also carry many products that you won’t be able to find in a typical grocery store, like Makrut lime powder or maple sugar. Having so many options available has encouraged me to try new cuisines and dishes. I recently made a tomato chickpea dish and added a little of their pomegranate molasses to top it off; the flavor combination was incredible!

Savory Spice has stores in several US states now, and they ship all over the world. Check out their website to see all of their amazing products; I personally recommend their baking spice.

Now, on to the recipe! This recipe is inspired by my most recent order from Savory Spice, but I’ll include ingredient substitutions so that you can make it with whatever ingredients you have on hand.

Two days ago, my oven broke. That’s right. In this era of relentless baking, I am suddenly left without the ability to get my oven above room temperature. But I was desperately in need of something comforting and sweet, so I decided to turn to a college student classic: chocolate mug cake. Feel free to experiment with the flavors in this recipe!

Perfect Chocolate Mug Cake

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

• 2 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder

• 2 tablespoon granulated sugar (I used one tablespoon of normal sugar and one tablespoon of Savory Spice’s Black Onyx Chocolate Sugar for some extra depth)

• 1/8 teaspoon salt

• ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, or espresso powder (I used a bit of Savory Spice’s Pure Espresso Powder and a bit of their Baking Spice)

• 1/4 cup + 1 tbsp. milk

• ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil

• 1 tablespoon chocolate chips, chocolate hazelnut spread, peanut butter, or whatever other flavor you want to add in

Directions

1. In a large microwave-safe mug*, whisk together dry ingredients.

2. Stir in the milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla until all ingredients are combined. Make sure to get into the corners of the mug so that there are no clumps.

3. Add your chips, nut butter, or another filling in the middle of the batter. It will sink down a bit while the cake cooks and make a gooey center.

4. Microwave mug cake for 90 seconds** on high.

5. Carefully remove from microwave and enjoy!

* It's important that the mug leaves room for the cake to expand, otherwise it will overflow!

** My microwave is 960 Watts. If yours is more powerful, cook the cake for closer to 70 seconds.