Sandwich cake in a microwave

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This is a follow-up to my strawberry cake post. I had previously made a note on the recipe that it also worked in the microwave. I wanted to try the recipe with gluten-free ingredients, and I wanted to know if that would also work in a microwave, but I didn’t want to change too many variables at once. Otherwise, if it didn’t turn out well, how would I know what caused the problem? So first I tried making gluten free cake and baked it in the normal way in an oven – that worked a treat. Then I tried exactly the same recipe but cooked it in a microwave instead. That also worked very well. It wasn’t quite the same texture as the oven-baked version, being very slightly ‘rubbery’ but most consumers wouldn’t notice if it wasn’t pointed out. The cake also doesn’t have the golden colour of an oven-baked cake so it was just the colour of the cake mixture, basically. For a change I made this into a raspberry version, with raspberry jam, fresh raspberries, and the other half of the pot of cream. It certainly went down well in this house! To cook in a microwave, use two silicone or other non-metallic pans. Prepare the cake mixture exactly as usual and divide between the pans. Cook the cakes separately (unless you have an enormous microwave!) at 900 W for 5 minutes each – or you could experiment with a few seconds less for a softer texture, maybe 4 minutes 45 seconds? Leave to cool before turning out. If you need to run a knife around the edge to loosen the cake, always use non-metal utensils on silicone. From my experience microwave-cooked cakes have a very slightly different texture to ‘normal’ cakes and a different colour. They also tend to go stale faster then normal. But if you are going to eat the cake in a day or two it’s absolutely fine. It’s faster, uses less energy, and doesn’t heat the kitchen up as much on a hot day. All rights reserved. © Text and image copyright Fleur 2026.