SHALL I tell you the most dangerous recipe in the world? It escaped from a high-security prison, sent in an air­mail letter to me from the United States, a country where obesity is a national epidemic. As the author says: “Now we are all only five minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night.”

With some misgivings, then, I pass this on, saying only that he is right, of course: don’t allow yourself to think about your neighbours in the hungry world. And only if you are in a holiday cottage on a rainy day at half-term, with only the most basic batterie de cuisine, should you consider it safe to venture upon. And don’t tell anyone else.

So this is Five-minute chocolate mug-cake, and the author concedes that it may be shared between two, for virtue’s sake. He also concedes that it may be genteelly tipped out on to a plate. (Does that mean he usually scoffs the lot, straight from the mug? Surely not.)

I used a tall plastic beaker for this. The original recipe says: “The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don’t be alarmed.” One day, when I am in a rainy holiday cottage with only a mug and a spoon, I will test it: the idea is that you need nothing more than those two items to produce an instant cake for tea.

4 tablespoons self-raising flour
4 tablespoons sugar (I used
3 tablespoons honey)
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips
(optional)
1 small splash vanilla extract
1 large microwavable mug

Add all the dry ingredients to the mug and mix well. Add the egg, and mix again. Pour in the milk and oil: mix again. Add the chocolate chips (if you use them) and vanilla, and stir again. Put the mug in the microwave and cook for three minutes at 1000 watts (for 800 watts, add another 30 se­conds). “Allow to cool a little. Eat!” Serve with a splash of liqueur and/or cream as a quick pudding.

I am not constitutionally a micro­wave cook; so I am looking forward to the ultra-slow cooking I will do when the Rayburn is lit again. This toffee-like Banana cake from the Carroll family is equally immoral and fatten­ing, but you have to wait for it, which is definitely more virtuous and allows time for recollection and resolution. And it has one of your “five-a-day” items in it; so it must be positively healthy.

70g (3 oz) butter
4 bananas, mashed
200g (8 oz) brown sugar (I used
100g (4 oz) each of honey and fruit-juice concentrate)
1 egg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
pinch salt
140g (6 oz) plain flour

Heat the oven to 160°C/325°F/gas mark 3. Beat all the ingredients to­gether in the given order, leaving the flour till last. Put the mixture into a well-greased loaf tin, and bake for an hour or until a knife inserted comes out clean.