Chocolate Red Wine Cake With Cranberries
This chocolate red wine cake is everything you want in a chocolate cake. It combines rich chocolate with the deep, complex flavours of red wine and it’s finished with a decadent chocolate frosting made with more red wine. Wine soaked cranberries add piquancy and a hint of luxury. It’s a great way to use up any leftover wine you may have too.
It’s National Chocolate Week, although every week is chocolate week in this household. Nevertheless, this seems a good time to post a showstopper chocolate cake.
This chocolate red wine cake was one of the first recipes I made from Charlotte Pike’s Easy Baking in her Hungry Student series of cookbooks. I made it back in July as my birthday offering to my work colleagues.
The cake is a plain unadorned one, although I can assure you that the taste is by no means plain. However, as it was a celebratory cake, I created a chocolate red wine icing to top it and decorated it using chocolate fingers. Sadly, like the chocolate amnesia cake, I didn’t write down exactly what I did, so promptly forgot.
However, recently, I had the perfect opportunity to make one again and remind myself just how good it was. I was set a challenge of creating a Home Bargains Showstopper and was sent a selection of goodies to help me on my way.
Home Bargains Baking Items
I was thrilled when a box arrived in the post packed full of all sorts of baking paraphernalia; it reminded me of a Christmas stocking as I excitedly pulled out one thing after another. The theme was definitely pink and what girl doesn’t like pink? There was a three layer pink cardboard cake stand, a pink heat mat, pink cupcake cases, pink hearts and pink marshmallows.
Luckily, there was a fair amount of red in it too and red is the colour of my kitchen. I immediately fell in love with the red strawberry apron and oven glove and was pleased with the two red silicone cake moulds and cookie cutters.
And it was indeed a home bargain as the whole lot would have cost less than £14. Products are available online or at 300 Home Bargains stores across the UK.
- Strawberry single oven glove – £1.49
- Top Cake love hearts – 79p
- Red strawberry apron £1.99
- Red cookie cutters – 99p
- 75 cupcake cases – 79p
- Red silicone cake mould (8″) – £1.99
- Vintage Dream cupcake cases and picks – 99p
- Stainless steel palette knife – 99p
- Silicone trivet – 79p
- Pink spotty cake stand – 99p
- Measuring spoons – 59p
- Mini marshmallows – 59p
Cornish Clandestine Cake Club
Then along came the first Cornish Clandestine Cake Club event I’ve been able to attend in a very long time and the theme was vintage. Held at a Cornish winery, it was more of a “vin” theme than a retro recipe one, but it was left up to us to choose. The chocolate red wine cake was a must.
The winery, Knightor, near St Austell and the Eden Project is housed in an old stone barn that has been spectacularly renovated. As ever, there were some fabulous cakes made by the indefatigable home bakers of Cornwall. Thanks to our mistress of ceremonies, Ellie, for organising another splendid Clandestine Cake Club event.
Chocolate And Cranberry Red Wine Cake
This time I made use of some dark cranberry chocolate that was in need of using and added it along with some cranberries soaked in red wine. I donned my lovely new apron, got out the new oven glove and cake decorations, washed the cake moulds and palette knife and set to, making up a filling and topping recipe once again. This time I wrote it down.
Moist, tasty and easy to bake, this has become one of my favourite chocolate cakes. The addition of wine soaked cranberries was inspired, though I say it myself. It adds piquancy and a hint of luxury. Mine was not the only red wine cake at CCCC, but CT reckoned that it stood up well to the competition. In fact, in an unguarded partisan moment, he declared it to be the best cake there.
Overall, this chocolate red wine cake is a delicious dessert that is perfect for special occasions or anytime you want to treat yourself to something decadent and luxurious. It’s a unique and sophisticated flavour combination that’s sure to impress anyone who tries it.
Best Red Wine To Use
Really the best red wine to use for this chocolate red wine cake is any open bottle of red wine you happen to have. The cake is a great way to use any leftovers. Having said that, dry red wines, fruity ones and full bodied all work particularly well. So if you have a choice, go for one of those.
Other Recipes Using Wine You Might Like
- Champagne syllabub with orange rhubarb compote
- Easy vegan chocolate sauce (Champagne or other sparkling wine)
- Poached pears in white wine
- Raspberry syllabub (Chardonnay)
- Red wine gravy
- Slow cooker vegetable stew (red wine)
Keep in Touch
Thank you for visiting Tin and Thyme. If you make this chocolate red wine cake, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below. Do you have any recommendations or advice for making it?
I’d very much appreciate it if you could rate the recipe. If you post pictures of your creations on social media, please use the hashtag #tinandthyme so I can see them.
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If you’d like more celebratory cake recipes, follow the link and you’ll find I have quite a lot of them. All delicious and nutritious, of course.
Choclette x
Chocolate Red Wine Cake. PIN IT.
Chocolate Red Wine Cake – The Recipe
Chocolate Red Wine Cake
Ingredients
Cake
- 125 ml red wine
- 50 g dried cranberries
- 125 g dark chocolate (I used 72% cocoa)
- 250 g unsalted butter softened
- 200 g golden caster sugar
- 50 g dark brown sugar (I used molasses sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 medium eggs
- 250 g flour (I used half wholemeal and half plain white)
- 1 ½ tsp baking powder
- 2 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt (I used Himalayan pink rock salt)
Buttercream
- 120 g unsalted butter softened
- 250 g icing sugar sifted
- 40 g cocoa powder
- 75 ml red wine
Instructions
Cake
- Pour the wine into a measuring jug.125 ml red wine
- Add the dried cranberries and leave to soak whilst getting on with everything else.50 g dried cranberries
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl suspended over a pan of hot, but not boiling water. Then leave to cool a little.125 g dark chocolate
- Set the oven to 180℃ (160℃ fan, 350℉, Gas 4).
- Cream the butter with the sugars until pale in colour and airy in texture.250 g unsalted butter, 200 g golden caster sugar, 50 g dark brown sugar
- Beat in the vanilla extract.1 tsp vanilla extract
- Beat in the eggs, one by one, adding a little of the flour if the mixture looks like curdling.4 medium eggs
- Sift in the flour, baking powder, cocoa and salt salt and stir gently to combine.250 g flour, 1 ½ tsp baking powder, 2 tbsp cocoa powder, 1 pinch fine sea or rock salt
- Stir in the wine and cranberries, a little at a time.
- Lastly stir in the melted chocolate until everything is just about mixed.
- Divide the cake batter between two 20 cm (8 inch) round silicone cake moulds or lined tins. Bake them in the middle of the oven, or as near as you can get for 20-25 minutes or until they’re well risen and a cake tester inserted in the middle comes out more or less clean.
- Leave in the moulds or tins for ten minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Buttercream
- Cream the butter and sifted icing sugar together until light in colour and fluffy in texture.120 g unsalted butter, 250 g icing sugar
- Sift in the cocoa powder and beat it in until well combined.40 g cocoa powder
- Pour in the red wine and beat vigorously until the buttercream is light and airy.75 ml red wine
- Sandwich the two sponges with half of the filling and slather the other half on top.
- Decorate as you wish. I scattered mine with pink hearts, pink sugar and pink shimmer balls.
chocolate and wine are such a classic combination – sounds like a great cake and am glad you rescued it from the depths of your amnesia – the CCC looks like such fun and so yummy
I have nominated you for a meme that I thought you might enjoy if you have the time – http://gggiraffe.blogspot.com/2013/10/a-z-bookish-survey.html
Thanks Johanna, it’s nice and easy to shed any cake eating guilt when everyone around you is eating cake too?
I’ll be over to check out your meme as soon as I can. Thank you for thinking of me 🙂
Cranberries are so perfect with chocolate. Delicious 🙂
Thanks Rachel. Soaked in the red wine, those cranberries were even better 🙂
Oh yum! I’ve never thought about wine and cake together: now it seems so obvious! All these cakes look fab…
Thanks Louise. It’s always fun making new discoveries and this was a really good one.
All the Cakes are looking awesome and the perfect celebration cake. It works amazinely well with chocolate in a cake and also ensures the cake is nice, tasty and yummy. I wouldn’t know what to choose?
Always spoilt for choice at Cake Club 😉
This sounds really interesting. I wouldn’t necessarily have put chocolate and red wine togegther like that – red wine can make me react a bot oddly these days, but I am tempted. It looks fantastic as do all the cakes!
A little red wine distributed amongst all that cake is nicely diluted Sally, you can taste it though. And it really is a very nice cake.
YUM, that sounds gorgeous! I have never had red wine in a cake before, but the combination sounds like heaven.
Thanks Sarah. It works surprisingly well with chocolate in a cake and also ensures the cake is nice and moist.
My husband, a big wine lover is reading this over my shoulder begging me to make this cake!!
Oh, go on Kate, you’ll both love it 😉
Absolutely love the sound of this. I love mixing alcohol with food! It always makes things interesting. There’s a bake sale coming up and I might just have to give this a try! If not, then it’s a perfect recipe for Christmas time.
Thanks Hazel, I suspect this would go down really well at a bake sale as it sounds a bit intriguing and it does taste very good too. Otherwise, it would make a very good alternative to a traditional Christmas cake.
MY burning question … what type of red wine did you use? This is such an interesting recipe!
A bottle of fairtrade Argentine Malbec. Although the first time around I used a bottle of red that was undrinkable but was fine in cooking.
That sounds like a wonderful alternative to Christmas cake!
Now that is a splendid idea, although I keep thinking I’d like to try a whisky cake.
Wow! Looks amazing! Interesting the addition of red wine. All the cakes look gorgeous, I wouldn’t know what to choose!
Thanks Alida. I was quite intrigued the first time I made it, but the red wine really works. I guess it has the same sort of compounds as chocolate and thus must be a super healthy heart cake too 😉
I’m so intrigued as to how it tastes. It looks glorious of course and the perfect celebration cake. That CCC looks like a heart attack waiting to happen!!
Ha Dom, you should get along to one – every CCC is a heart attack waiting to happen!
I definitely want to have a go at making this, I’d seen a few recipes for red wine chocolate cake before but tasting yours and Ellie’s has confirmed that it actually does work!
It was good to taste Ellie’s too – both good, both quite different.