Skip to main content

Chocolate? Wine? Yes, Please!

I like chocolate. I like wine. It was only a matter of time until I would put the two together.

Red Wine Cupcakes (recipe courtesy of the ladies at We Are Not Martha)

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

5 oz. chocolate chips

1/2 cup boiling water (two to three minutes in microwave)

Combine these three until chips are completely melted. Set aside.


2 sticks butter, room temperature

1 1/2 C sugar

4 eggs

Cream the first two, and add one egg at a time, beating in completely.

1 1/4 C flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1 t salt

Combine these dry ingredients and mix into egg mixture.


3/4 C red wine (I went with a local favorite)

Alternate melted chocolate and wine into flour-egg mixture. When all in combined, fill muffin cups to near full and bake for 20-27 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cupcakes cool slightly and remove to wire rack.

Then...in lieu of the cream cheese frosting recipe posted at the website, I opted for a simpler one.

Red Wine Frosting

Beat together: 2 cups powdered sugar, 1/2 cup (one stick) softened butter, 1 tsp vanilla, 1/4 cup red wine. Frost cupcakes when they are cool.

And voila!


Additional notes: I used cake flour for the first time, and when I baked the first batch for 20 minutes, they seemed very underdone (sunken tops). The next went for 23 minutes, and the same thing occurred (to a lesser extent). The last batch cooked for 27 minutes, and that seemed to be the right amount of time. I don't know for sure if it was the cake flour usage or that the recipe's cook time was off. I should probably make these again to find out for sure (using all-purpose).

The garnishes were a spur of the moment thing. I had leftover maraschino cherries in the fridge, and I let them drain overnight in the fridge. However, this morning, the frosting had hardened (chilling in the fridge), and putting the cherries on top proved to be an exercise in futility. Enter the flamingo mini-skewers. Just laying there in my random kitchen gadget drawer!

My family (children included) did taste-test these. Yes, I know there is a full cup of wine in this recipe. Nobody got drunk. These aren't cupcakes I'd make for around the house - I'm taking them to a family gathering. Mostly adults. The kids get Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies - from a "Be Food" March post.

Comments

  1. Sounds good, but 2 sticks butter are 2 too much for our families cholesterol.
    Don't worry about the kids, or anyone getting drunk, alcohol evaporates out at a high rate during cooking, it's unlikely any remains. That's how a distilling works, the alcohol cooks out in the steam and is captured, cooled, and directed into the jug or the next cooker.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Go Placidly

My food truck business started back up this past weekend, and from here until November, the weeks will be packed.  Sandwich-slinging Thursday-Saturday and bartending work Monday-Wednesday.  And Sunday, I guess, is the day to sleep in and hide in my house. Hiding out is the one thing I feel like doing a lot of these days.  My food truck's ReOpening wasn't the only thing happening in my hometown this weekend past.  A 13-year-old boy was accidentally shot and killed on Saturday and then yesterday, the police department busted one of the biggest meth labs in a long time. Both are tragic...one is a sad loss, one that will devastate a loving family for the rest of their lives.  One is tragic only because of the profound stupidity/ignorance/addiction of a few people who happen to be living in a town mostly filled with good-hearted, hard-working people. And if it's not drama at the local level, then there's the constant bombardment of news that seems to be vividly...

We Overeat...Because We're Getting Fatter?

Well, if that just doesn't flip conventional medical wisdom on its head, I don't know what will. So I'm reading "Why We Get Fat" by Gary Taubes, right? Chapter 9 is titled "Laws of Adiposity" - much of the first section discusses an experiment conducted by George Wade.  After removing the ovaries from three sets of female lab rats, this is what he found: 1. The rats who were allowed to eat whatever, whenever gained weight and became obese. 2. The rats who were put on a strict post-surgery diet still gained weight and became obese. 3. The rats who were injected with estrogen and left to whatever eating pattern they chose did not grow obese. Obviously, this experiment (with further explanation in the book) linked the presence of estrogen to weight loss/gain.  Taubes goes on to say "estrogen influences an enzyme called lipoprotein lipase (LPL)".  These enzymes pull fat into cells that express a need for it (91).  When there is no estrog...

Fun With Tomato Juice

This blog entry has quite a backstory, but I'll sum it up quickly. In making the mega-batch of Red Sauce, I drained roughly 32 oz of juice from a large can of diced tomatoes.  "Waste not, want not", so I froze the leftover liquid, to be used at a later time. That time was today.  My original thought was to concoct a chili or similar, but then...I had ideas! Searching online, I found a recipe for Tomato-Basil soup at www.allrecipes.com.  With slight modifications (I had no crushed tomatoes or fresh basil) to the soup, today's lunch was soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  Raves all around, and I guess now I can say goodbye to Campbell's Tomato Soup. Thank you - allrecipes.com! That left me with another 20 or so ounces of remaining tomato juice, and I was hankering to do something crazy with it.  And what would be on the other end of the tomato usage spectrum, if innocent, comforting tomato soup is on the another? The Bloody Mary, of course!  Blo...