Red Wine Chocolate Cake

Say this:

Plain bun. Plum bun. Bun without a plum.

Now say it really fast:

PlainbunPlumbunBunwithoutaplum.

If you didn’t say “bum”, “blum” or “plub”, you deserve two slices of this cake. With the ice cream.

Where, you might ask, did I come across this epic waste of time, but oh-so-fun tongue twister? We had a good friend over this weekend, and as we ate some phenomenal food and gave the vineyards in Nashik a ton of business, he made us take turns saying that. Needless to say, we all failed.

Unlike this cake.

If you are ever in the unlikely situation of having extra wine lying around, you need to make it. It’s like the solid version of this hot chocolate. It’s a basic, homemade chocolate cake. But the red wine added to it takes this humble confection to a whole other level. Despite there being only cocoa and no melted chocolate, the cake turns out super chocolatey.

I discovered the recipe through another blog which it turns out, had adapted it from The Smitten Kitchen, one of my favourite blogs out there. Coincidentally, a friend of mine recommended it too. This cake really has gone places.

 

The ice cream and hot chocolate sauce on top was a last-minute thing. I made this cake as a pre-birthday cake for our friend and decided to jazz it up with a scoop of Mississippi Mud from Baskin Robbins. The only thing better than chocolate, is more chocolate, right?

Soft, fudgy, bursting with the best flavours in the world. This cake will not disappoint!

 

What you’ll need:

85 gms butter (or 6 tbsps; I used Amul, otherwise add 1/4 tsp salt)

3/4 cup brown sugar (I’ve discovered Mawana is finer and easy on the pocket)

1/4 cup castor sugar

1 egg plus 1 egg yolk, at room temp

3/4 cup red wine (I used Sula Satori, any of your favourites will work)

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup plus 1 tbsp flour

1/2 cup cocoa powder

1/8 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

 

What to do:

1. Sift the dry ingredients (flour to cinnamon) and set aside. Preheat the oven to 160 C and grease an 8″ springform tin. The cake does not rise very much so don’t use a very wide dish.

2. Using an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat well till fluffy, about 3 minutes.

3. Add the whole egg and the yolk and beat again. Now add the wine and vanilla. The batter might look uneven, that’s ok.

4. Fold in the dry ingredients and beat lightly if you see any lumps.

5. Pour into the prepared dish and bake for 30 to 40 minutes or till a toothpick poked into the center of the cake comes out clean. My cake rose a bit, cracked and took longer to cook than the recipe said, but every oven is different, so watch your cake carefully after the first half hour. The top was nice and crusty, again different from the way the recipe described it. It tasted amazing though, so I’m leaving that mystery unsolved.

Serve with a simple sauce made of dark chocolate and cream, ice cream, whipped cream, dusted with powdered sugar or cinnamon, or just eat as is. Sometimes simple is best 🙂