Two celebrations, two flavors: Wine and Chocolate Cake

Our two-month crazy period has finally ended! At least for a month ahead, no more trips out of town, no more weddings, gigs, big events that require driving 6 hours straight, flying or staying away for sleepless weekends. We are home!

Our only desire now I to spend a couple of months relaxing, working on our new home, spending time with our friends, and also alone. We started well this week. We both had a lot of work but we also managed to have a nice, quiet dinner with Nat and Terrell, our two dear friends that you “met” at my pfb competition dinner. Nat and Terrell’s birthdays are in the same week so we could not have a better way to inaugurate our new (first) dining table than with a dinner. It was a very low key dinner, with bread and cheese as starter and gnocchi as main dish. A bottle of wine and the evening was perfect. (It was a Wednesday night and we all wake up early so eating and drinking too much was not a good idea anyway)

The cake could not miss of course! I have chosen which cake I wanted to make for these two amazing guys 3 weeks ago, when I came across the recipe for a “Drunk Cake” at Muffin, cookies e altri pasticci, an Italian blogger that does spectacular desserts! We loved the cake. The only remark I have is that I was hoping I could taste the wine a bit more. I think next time I will put more wine :)

Wine Chocolate Cake

Ingredients

300 gr (10.65 oz or 1 and ½ cup) sugar

200 gr (7.05 oz) butter, at room temperature

70 gr (2.5 oz) cocoa powder

100 ml (3.4 fl zo) red wine, of good quality

150 gr (5.1 oz or 1 cup and 2 tbsp) all purpose flour

4 eggs

15 gr (3 tsp) baking powder

Preheat the oven to 350F degrees and grease a bundt pan.

In a medium bowl, mix the sugar, the butter, the cocoa powder and the red wine at medium speed. Pour the mixture into a pot and make it melt on a low flame. In a few minute the mixture will be pretty liquid. Make sure you do not burn it though!

When the mixture is liquid, set aside 1 glass (around 170 ml) of the mixture and put the rest back into the bowl.

Add to the mixture in the bowl the eggs, the flour and the baking powder.

Pour the final mixture into the bundt pan and bake for about 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Unmold the cake on a cooling rack and pour the mixture you set aside. Let the cake sit for at least one hour so that the wine mixture gets absorbed before serving.

Have a sweet day!