For All You Lovers Out There… Red Wine Chocolate Cake

By Lee Price on February 9, 2012 in Food

Valentine’s Day gives us all a good excuse to get a bit loved up, but if you’ve over-spent during the silly season, you may not have too much cash to splash around on your beloved. If that’s the case, a home-baked treat is a great way to say ‘I love you’ without breaking the bank.

And what better recipe to use than one that combines three of the best things in life – chocolate, wine and cake. It’s like three gifts in one. This cake looks very romantic with its subtle red hue from the wine, and when you’re hit with the chocolate-cinnamon combination it’ll make your heart melt just a little.

The cake itself doesn’t rise as much as a traditional cake, as it uses plain flour instead of self-raising, but this is a good thing as it is quite rich, so a small piece should suffice. Due to the nature of the ingredients, it may not be entirely suitable for kids or teetotalers as the wine doesn’t completely bake out of the cake.

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It’s quick to make, and you can mix it all up in one bowl with just a measuring jug, sifter and a spatula to help you out.

Ingredients

85g unsalted butter, at room temperature
¾ cup dark brown sugar
¼ cup white sugar
1 egg + 1 egg yolk
3/4 cup red wine (any type is fine)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tablespoon plain flour
½ cup cocoa powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
Icing sugar, to dust
Cream or ice cream, to serve

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 170°C. Grease and line a medium-sized cake tin with baking paper.

2. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter for around 30 seconds until creamy. Add the sugars and beat for 3 minutes, so that the sugar dissolves and mixes well with the butter. Add the egg and the yolk, plus the red wine and vanilla, and mix again for 30 seconds on low speed. The mixture may look a little watery at this point – if so just use a spatula to mix so you don’t end up covered in it.

3. Sift all of your dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon) into the cake mixture and bring together with the spatula until smooth.

4. Bake for 30 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.

5. Allow to cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan to cool completely.

6. When cooled, dust with icing sugar and serve with a dollop of cream or ice cream.

Have you got a great recipe that you would like to share? Send it through to operationjamjar@y7mail.com and you could see it in a future issue of the Beast Magazine.

For more recipes and thrifty cooking ideas visit operationjamjar.blogspot.com.