Chocolate & Red Wine Cake
Chocolate and red wine come together to make magic in this vegan, whole wheat chocolate red wine cake. Perfect for your vegan valentine!
Only a serious loser would bake her own birthday cake, right? Right. So I will just gloss over the fact that my hubby and I ate this Chocolate Red Wine cake for my Birthday dessert last month, and focus on its suitability as a vegan valentines day dessert instead.
Chocolate and red wine contained within one bite? That is my idea of a good time. This is such a lovely variation on the traditional chocolate cake. I was first inspired by this recipe from the Smitten Kitchen, but used this recipe from Moosewood to make it vegan, and a little tweaking of my own to make it whole grain.
I definitely fall into the Valentines Day non-enthusiastic camp, but I will take it as an excuse to make this chocolate cake again. I mean, by birthday isn’t for another 11 months…
Enjoy!
- For cake:
- 1½ cups whole wheat pastry flour
- ⅓ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 cup brown sugar*
- ½ cup safflower oil ( or other neutral vegetable oil)
- ¾ cup red wine
- ¼ cup water
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp cider vinegar
- For Icing:
- ¾ cup dark chocolate chips
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 1 tbsp red wine
- water or almond milk to create desired consistency
- Preheat oven to 375F/190C
- Line a 9 inch cake pan or grease liberally
- In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, baking soda, salt and sugar, set aside
- In a medium bowl, whisk together oil, wine, water and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the try, and mix until just combined. Quickly transfer to the cake pan
- Add the vinegar to the mixture, and quickly stir until its evenly distributed throughout the cake batter
- Bake for 35 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean, allow to cool for a few minutes in the palm before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely
- Make the icing: place chocolate chips, vanilla and wine in a small microwavable bowl, microwave at 20 second increments, stirring between each blast. When the ingredients have completely melted together, you can stir water or almond milk to reach desired consistency
- When the cake is completely cooled, smooth the icing over the cake
Notes
Adapted from this recipe, and inspired by this one.
If you don’t have a microwave you can prepare the icing with a double broiler instead.
Reminds me of uni times – our two favourite things 🙂 x
Still my two fave things!! xxx
pure genius. if it’s vegan, i can eat more \o/
Precisely!
This looks fantastic! Is this the kind of recipe that the flavor of the wine really shows through – as in, should I use a good wine, or would a cheap one do the trick?
Great question! I went middle of the road as the recipe doesn’t call for two much time, and I wanted to drink the leftovers 🙂 I hope this helps!
I always make my own birthday cake!! I think this just means that I have standards…not that I’m loser. 😛 At least that’s what I tell myself! The chocolate red wine combo is so classy…totally birthday approved!
Haha! I prefer your reasoning, I’ll go with that from now on!
This looks amazing…and so moist! I hate that word..:)
Haha! Thanks Kathlene 🙂
I made Smitten’s red wine velvet cake a few weeks ago, and it was divine. Kudos to you for coming up with a vegan version!
Thank Erin!
Wow, this looks epic. I’ve never made a red wine chocolate cake but I’ve heard about them…seeing this has convinced me to take the plunge and make one asap!
This cake looks so moist and delicious! I have never had the wine/chocolate combination, but I a thinking that will change starting now!
Girl, I ALWAYS bake my own birthday cake. Sometimes the husband or a friend will make me one as well, but it’s never exactly what I want so I just go for it. I know I’ll bake a better cake (sorry husband, your cake was dry) and I know it’ll be crafted with exactly my tastes in mind. I love the looks of this red wine cake, and that you’ve made it with whole wheat. I’ll be home alone on Valentine’s day this year, so perhaps I should treat myself to another cake!
So funny! Ok I feel like less of a loser now… Maybe I’m just a control freak?!
Emma I made my birthday cake too this year…so you are not alone 😛 It’s fun actually..at least I had fun making it! Your cake looks really good..I have never made chocolate cake with red wine but looks like I need to.
PS: That bowl with your name is totally cute! 🙂
Wine in my chocolate cake makes dessert easy! And vegan! And only one dish to dirty 🙂 I think making your own cake is a great idea because then you get exactly what you want! I can’t wait to try this.
Thanks Caitlin! Yes the one bowl method is always appealing!