Vegan Chocolate Hazelnut Malt Mug Cakes

I have personally really struggled to make mug cakes in the past. A good healthy vegan mug cake (without protein powder) is a little hard to come by. This particular mug cake was my first successful attempt! You can make this mug cake with any nut butter but as you all know, I’m a sucker for the choc hazelnut combo so I couldn’t go past it. I think I’d also love it with peanut butter! I was under the impression that mug cakes should take a lot less time and be a lot easier to make since they are tiny and only need to be microwaved but for some reason I found the process of dealing with small ingredient amounts a little tricky and finicky. Most likely because I’m just so used to using bigger measurements. I also really struggled with the microwave as I just couldn’t tell if the batter had cooked through! In the end, I got it right but I’ll be the first to admit that I need more practice with mug cakes!

I loved the different malty flavour that comes through from using malt syrup. I love malt syrup. I feel like it doesn’t get the recognition it deserves as a natural sweetener. It’s loaded with B vitamins including B12 which is important on a plant-based diet. It’s an overlooked plant-based source of b12 and I’m not sure why more people aren’t talking about it. I think one of the reasons that people don’t think of it is that since it comes from barley it may contain traces of gluten. As far as I am aware, the gluten in malt syrup is very minimal and shouldn’t upset the majority of people.

Personally, I treat barley malt syrup a little like I treat mollases. I use mollases when I need a hit of extra iron in my diet (like when I was pregnant) and I use malt syrup when I need some extra b vitamins! I’m very sensitive to all medication including natural supplements, so I have chosen to rely solely on food as I don’t want to play trial and error with different supplements until I find some that work.  I strongly believe no supplement (no matter how good) could ever have better benefits than real food.  I love having foods like this to fall back on when I know I need a little extra hit of nutrients. Besides who doesn’t like a nice malty flavour in their chocolate?

I actually made this recipe a long time ago, right before we moved interstate and never got the chance to upload it to the blog. But thankfully here it is now. The recipe makes enough for one large mug cake or two small mug cakes. The easiest version is to use a microwave for about 90 seconds on high but you can also use an oven and bake for about 10 minutes. The recipe is vegan, dairy-free, low gluten and refined sugar-free. Enjoy!