If there is one thing better than wine, it must be wine cake. This red wine chocolate cake will be your go to recipe to use your leftover wine or your perfect excuse to open a bottle of a good full-bodied red wine after a long day.
I personally like cooking with wine – sometimes I even add it to the food or, like in this case, to the cake. This recipe is based on a cake my best friend Agnes baked for me a few years ago to celebrate handing in my Master’s thesis. Special thanks again to Agnes for showing me how a good glass of red wine can cheer you up and how it can give your chocolate cake a special twist you will immediately notice and fall in love with.
Which wine to use
For this recipe I used a dry Primitivo di Manduria. This key red-wine DOC of Italy’s southern Puglia region is a very traditional red wine, and got its name because it ripens early. The name has nothing to do with the wine being “primitive”. There are almost no limitations, but make sure to use a red wine that is not fizzy and not to sweet, and one you personally like. The alcohol will not bake out fully and the wine will give the cake an intense and rich flavor that you will definitely notice. I experimented this red wine chocolate cake recipe with several different wines and all of them turned out amazing. Everything from Primitivo di Manduria, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot to Shiraz works perfectly.
The ideal mix
If you want to moisten the cake a bit more and deepen the flavor use dark brown sugar. For this recipe I only used 150g of sugar because I personally do not like cakes that are too sweet. If you are a sweet tooth, you can of course add some more sugar (max. 250g). Depending also on how much you love chocolate, you can use more unsweetened cacao to make the cake even tastier. Make sure to avoid over-mixing when putting all ingredients together to keep the cake as light and fluffy as possible.
Serve the red wine cake after dinner, during a wine tasting or even during a break in the afternoon plain, with some sugar on top, drizzle chocolate ganache over it or serve it with whipped cream and fresh berries.
Red Wine Chocolate Cake
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Ingredients
- 150g sugar
- 300g flour
- 300g butter (melted)
- 5 small eggs
- 1 baking powder
- 1 vanilla sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 3-4 tbsp unsweetened cacao
- 1/8L red wine
Instructions
In a huge bowl, mix the sugar, flour, baking powder, vanilla sugar, cinnamon and unsweetened cacao. Beat in the eggs one at a time and stir it manually. Add 1/8L red wine of your choice to the batter and stir everything until smooth. Grease a medium baking tray or line it with baking paper. Scrape the batter into the prepared baking tray and smooth the top. Bake at 200 degrees C for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow the cake to cool in the baking tray. Dust the cake with powdered sugar or drizzle some chocolate ganache over it. Enjoy the cake with fresh fruits or whipped cream.
