Modernist Cuisine’s Scott Heimendinger shared this cool recipe from the new cookbook Modernist Cuisine at Home to make a fluffy, impressive dessert from boxed cake mix in about a minute in the microwave.

Special equipment: You will need a whipping siphon and 4 nitrous oxide canisters for this recipe.

  • Difficulty: Easy

Ingredients (8)

For the cake batter:

  • 1 box Betty Crocker SuperMoist Yellow Cake Mix
  • 1 1/4 cups water
  • 1/3 cup vegetable oil
  • 3 eggs

To bake:

  • Whipping siphon
  • 4 nitrous oxide canisters
  • Paper cups
  • Nonstick cooking spray

Instructions

For the cake batter:

  1. Prepare the batter as directed on the box.

To bake:

  1. Pour half of the batter into the whipping siphon and charge with 2 of the nitrous oxide canisters.
  2. Using scissors, make a few vertical cuts in the bottoms of the paper cups to allow steam to escape.
  3. Spray the paper cups with cooking spray.
  4. Siphon the batter into the paper cups until they’re a quarter of the way full. (Do not overfill.)
  5. Cook 1 cup at a time in the microwave on high power for 1 minute.
  6. Invert each cup on a plate and allow it to rest for a few seconds while the steam escapes, then tap the cup on the plate to release the cake.
  7. Repeat the whole process with the remaining cake batter.