red wine chocolate cupcakes

Red, red wine.... go to my head...

Yes, I'm a light-weight. A cadbury, as one would say.

I always have trouble finishing off a bottle of red. Don't get me wrong, I do like a glass of red, but am not one for drinking a whole bottle. Luckily, I found this recipe while browsing through one of my sites of inspiration: Smitten Kitchen. The red wine in this recipe is the perfect amount to finish off that last bit  of wine in a bottle.

This cake is really divine. You can smell the wine (yes, it doesn't completely cook off!) and so has that 'adult' feel to it. The flavour can be quite intense but I think that's a good thing. Some type of topping or cream would help with the intensity of the flavour. I used cream cheese icing for my cupcakes - a bit like a red velvet cupcake. I recently made some for a friend's party and her daughter accidentally ate one (apparently she is attracted to anything 'chocolate'). She quickly proceeded to tell her mum that 'they taste funny' so a word of caution: probably not best for the kiddies!

If however, you are looking for a lovely cake for dessert or a cheeky somewhat boozy afternoon tea, this cake will hit the spot. It works in multiple ways - I made them into cupcakes but it would work as a cake too, as seen on the Smitten Kitchen website.

They are really easy to whip up, so go on, treat yourself, use up the last of the red wine in that bottle and kick your feet up when done. You'll thank me for it, I'm sure.

red wine chocolate cupcakes

adapted from smitten kitchen's Red Wine Chocolate Cake

85g unsalted butter at room temperature
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup caster sugar
2 large eggs at room temperature
3/4 cup red wine, any kind you like
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup + 1 tbs plain flour
1/2 cup Dutch cocoa powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp table salt
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1| Preheat the oven to 165 degrees. Line your cupcake tray with cupcake liners.
2| In a large bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter on a medium speed until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy (for about 3 minutes).
3| Add the eggs and beat well. Pour the red wine in and vanilla. The batter will probably look a little uneven but that's ok.
4| Sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together, over the wet mixture. Mix until 3/4 combined, then fold the rest together with a rubber spatula. Nice and slow, so it's all even.
5| Divide the mixture into the cupcake liners and bake for about 20 minutes or so, or until the cake tester inserted into the cupcakes comes out clean.
6| Cool the cakes on a rack. Top with any icing you like or with icing sugar. I topped mine with cream cheese icing. mmm. cream cheese icing.

chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting

I don't really need a good excuse to bake cupcakes. Heck, I don't need an excuse full stop. I will happily oblige and provide cupcakes for anyone that requests I bring them to any shindig. The Biggest Morning Tea was no different.

What's the Biggest Morning Tea? Only one of Australia's most well-loved fundraising events, that's what. It's a great fundraiser for the Cancer Council. Apparently a first for the company I work for this year (in terms of participation), the inaugural Biggest Morning Tea was scheduled for Friday 27 May 2011. My colleagues are really organised. So organised in fact that we discussed what we were going to bring for the Morning Tea the week before. Hands down, it was unanimous. I was to bring chocolate cupcakes.

This suited me fine because I LOVE chocolate cupcakes. What's not to love? I am a firm believer that the best kind of cupcakes are the simple ones. Don't get me wrong, I love all the different kinds of cupcakes and flavours you can get these days that are frosted sky high and decorated to the nines. They certainly are beautiful to look at but my only criticism is I find them too sickly sweet for my palate and end up not enjoying the sensorial experience a cupcake should bring. Instead I find myself keeling over thinking I shouldn't have eaten that amount of sugar in such a short space of time, especially when I can feel my teeth 'hurting'. I believe that there's something really beautiful in the simplicity of a good chocolate cupcake made with high quality ingredients. I think that's key - you have to use a high-quality cocoa powder and chocolate (dark chocolate if possible!) to create the most scrumptious chocolate cupcake.

 I've tried a couple of different chocolate cupcake recipes; some with great results and others, not so great results. This one is a good one. They're easy to make, with minimal preparation and are absolutely scrumptious with good quality dark chocolate topped with my super quick and easy chocolate icing!

Also, I have been doing some reading online and have found that people are really worried about cupcakes with cracked tops. As you can see from above, mine cracked and I don't really care. It doesn't really affect the taste of the cupcake but, I will make chocolate cupcakes again I'm sure, so when I crack the mystery of cracked tops I'll be sure to blog about it! But for now, I am content with hastily covering them up with yummy chocolate icing and coloured sprinkles.

chocolate cupcakes with chocolate icing

 

preparation time | 15 minutes

cooking time | 20 minutes

makes | 12 cupcakes with a muffin top, 16 smaller ones

chocolate cupcakes

100g dark chocolate, chopped

1 cup (250ml) water

125g butter, softened

1 cup (210g) brown sugar

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups (225g) self-raising flour

1/2 cup (75g) plain flour

1/4 cup (30g) cocoa powder

chocolate icing

2 tablespoons butter at room temperature

2 tablespoons of cocoa powder

1 cup icing sugar mixture

1 tablespoon boiling water

1 tablespoon milk

1| Preheat your oven to 180°C (or 160°C fan forced). Line the muffin / cupcake tray with pretty paper cases.

2| Place the chocolate and water into a small saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring for about 5 minutes or so or until the chocolate has melted and the mixture is nice and smooth. Remove from heat and set aside to cool.

3| Using an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugar until pale and creamy. Add the eggs, one at a time, always beating well after each egg to make sure all are combined well. Sift the flours and cocoa and fold into the mixture, alternating in thirds with the chocolate liquid mixture, ending with the flour/cocoa mixture (so, you should mix flour, then a bit of liquid, flour, liquid and finish with flour).

4| Spoon the mixture evenly into the prepared cases (about 2/3 full so you don't get that muffin top look). Place into the oven and bake for about 20 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the centre comes out clean. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool. 

5| To make the icing, place the butter, cocoa and icing sugar mixture into a small bowl. Pour 1 tablespoon of water. Whisk together the mixture until it forms a paste. Add in a little bit of milk (just a little bit!) at a time, until the mixture is spreadable. If you like heat up the milk a bit so it's easier to mix. If you want a sweeter icing, add in a bit more icing sugar mixture. If it's too thick, add in a bit more liquid and if it's too runny, add in more sugar (for those that love their icing sweet) or a bit more cocoa powder.

6| Ice and decorate your cupcakes any which way you wish!

portuguese custard tarts

Now, I’ve made these before without a hitch. In fact, they were really straightforward, no issues whatsoever. Granted, I made them in Brisbane, in my mum’s awesome kitchen filled with everything you possibly need (plus, her oven is truly amazing. I’m so glad my parents decided to renovate our family home and that my mum gave herself the kitchen she’s always dreamed of). And then, having craved egg tarts for weeks gave in to temptation and decided I would make them again.

Talk about a disaster. Wait, let’s rewind. Ok so I started off ok, separated the eggs, whisked in the sugar, starch flour and milk and the mixture was starting to boil. All going according to plan, just as it should. But after constant stirring, I was wondering why the boiling mixture wasn’t getting any thicker. (Poor) instinct told me, no matter, I’ll just add in some more starch flour. Fail. That just made the once smooth mixture lumpy and gross. Having been raised never to waste food, I added in a half a cup of rice, a dash of ground cinnamon and nutmeg, thinking that I could make a rice pudding. After 10 minutes the delicious aroma wafted through the kitchen but the mixture looked like vomit. I kid you not. The rice wasn’t cooking and more and more of the mixture was sticking to the bottom of the pan. I kept putting a bit more milk during the 10 minutes but I think that made it worse. The liquid I was adding kept evaporating. Epic fail.

I’d had enough. I scraped as much as I could out of the pan and into the bin. I hate wasting ingredients but I knew it was a lost cause. To make things worse, I had this pan with a lot of milk, egg, sugar, starch flour and rice stuck to the bottom. Good thing I remembered something my mum taught me – if you have a non-stick pan with a lot of food stuck to the bottom, to make it easier to clean, add some water to the pan and place on the stove. Cook it off (until it boils) and use a wooden spoon or some sort of sturdy scraper and the stuck food will come off. Voila it worked!

So what was the cause of the epic fail? I had put in two teaspoons of starch flour, rather than 2 tablespoons of it. Yep, a simple mistake like that has dire consequences.

Right. Take two.

A much better result! I admit, I did deviate from the original recipe but that’s only because I didn’t want to brave the cold and decided to just make do with what was in my pantry. This time around I used 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg instead of 3 egg yolks, raw sugar instead of caster sugar and soy milk (Soy Milky by Vitasoy) rather than cream and milk. I quite like making these tarts with soy milk – the custard is still nice and creamy but it tricks our mind into thinking we’re doing something good for us. Plus, it also means that our lactose intolerant friends can enjoy a nice egg tart too. 

Now, I’ve also been reading other blogs where people are having issues with getting the nice brown colour on top. I haven’t had that issue. That’s probably because usually, I’m prone to burning things. I like to put the oven on fan forced at about 200C. If it’s burning too quickly, you can always turn down the temperature. Now, when they come out of the oven, the tarts will puff up a bit and then they'll deflate. Don't worry, it won't change how good they'll taste!

Adapted from Bill Granger’s pasteis de nata recipe

portuguese egg tarts

preparation time | 10 minutes for custard plus cooling time, 15 minutes for tarts

cooking time | 20-25 minutes

makes | 12 tarts

3 egg yolks

110g sugar

2tbsp cornflour or starch flour

230ml cream

170ml milk

2 tsp vanilla extract

1 sheet of puff pastry

Ground cinnamon

1| Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin / cupcake tray.

2| Whisk together the egg yolks, sugar and cornflour in a pan until smooth. Gradually whisk in the cream and milk until smooth.

3| Place the pan over medium heat, and cook, continuously stirring until bubbles appear (come to the boil) and the mixture thickens. Remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract. Cover the pan with cling film wrap to prevent a skin forming and leave the custard to cool.

4| Preheat the oven to 200°C.

5 | Sprinkle the cinnamon over the pastry sheet. Cut the sheet in half and put one half on top of the other. Set aside for about 5 minutes. Roll up the pastry tightly from the short end and cut the pastry log into 12 x 1cm rounds. Lay each pastry round on to a lightly floured surface and use a rolling pin to roll out until each is about 10cm in diameter.

6| Press the pastry rounds into the muffin tin. Spoon the cooled custard into the pastry cases and bake for about 20-25 minutes, or until the pastry and custard is nice and golden. Leave the tarts in the tin for about 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

If you want to make a healthier version – use 2 egg yolks and 1 whole egg, raw sugar instead of white and 400ml of milk (you can use soy milk – tastes just as good!). Adding in a bit of cinnamon to the pastry will also do wonders - sure these may not end up tasting like the original Portuguese tart, but I think you'll find them just as good.