Red Wine Chocolate Cake

This bundt red wine chocolate cake is dense, moist, and soft, topped with a delicious red wine chocolate ganache. And want to know what's best? It's as easy to make as fancy as it sounds!

Now that Christmas is closing by, desserts like this delectable wine cake are the perfect treat. The wine adds a more cozy holiday flavor to this cake making it pretty unique.

Table Of Contents

• What Does It Taste Like?
• Ingredients
• Flour Substitutes & Gluten-Free Options
• Best Chocolate To Use
• Red Wine To Use For Chocolate Cake
• How To Make Chocolate Cake With Wine
• Extra Toppings
• Recipe

What Does It Taste Like?

This red wine chocolate cake tastes like chocolate and sweet grapes with a hint of spiced cinnamon flavor. You can't taste the alcohol from the wine in it. Actually, if you are familiar with Greek Moustokouloura (Grape Molasses Cookies) then it tastes just like that, with the addition of chocolate.

And the aroma it yields, while it bakes, is almost the same as banana bread. My mum thought I was making banana bread while I was making it. So you could say it has a similar fruity sweetness to that of banana bread.

The Texture

Chocolate red wine cake is dense yet very soft, and moist because of the bits of chocolate melting inside.

Ingredients

For this red wine cake recipe, you need butter, sugar, eggs, unsweetened cocoa powder, ground cinnamon, self-raising flour, red wine, and dark chocolate chopped into small bits.

For the red wine glaze recipe/ganache, you need dark chocolate, red wine, butter, heavy cream, and a little bit of honey.

Flour Substitutes & Gluten-Free Options

• You can make your own self-rising flour at home following this recipe. Or use all-purpose flour together with 4 teaspoons of baking powder.
• To make this wine cake Gluten-Free you can make your own self-rising gluten-free flour blend, or use Bob's Red Mill Gluten-Free 1:1 Baking Flour together with 4 teaspoons of baking powder.

Best Chocolate To Use

For the cake batter, use chopped dark chocolate (70% cocoa), baker chocolate, or dark chocolate couverture. It's better than chocolate chips/drops because it will blend and incorporate better into the batter.

You will still find bits of chocolate within the cake. But they will be smaller. Because most of it will melt and dissolve into the cake batter, making it nice and moist.

As for the wine chocolate glaze/ganache, you also need either dark chocolate (70% cocoa), baker chocolate, or dark chocolate couverture. The more bitter the chocolate, the better it will pair with the red wine.

NOTE: To make the best dark chocolate cake glaze, use chocolate couverture. It's the best for melting and coating purposes. As it melts beautifully and forms a great ganache.

Red Wine To Use For Chocolate Cake

To make this cake I used a plain dry red wine. The wine for chocolate cake doesn't need to be sweet (actually it's best if it isn't because the cake is already sweet enough). You can use any variety of red wine you want for this cake. It doesn't have to be something fancy.

The stronger the wine is (the deeper red color it has) the stronger the flavor of the cake will be.

Now if you're looking for a wine to pair with chocolate cake (to serve it with), then in that case you need a sweet red wine. Such as Port, Sherry wine, or Moscato.

You can read more about chocolate wine pairing in this article.

How To Make Chocolate Cake With Wine

Just like any other classic bundt cake, you start by creaming the butter with sugar. Then add the eggs one by one, and then the dry ingredients and the wine.

For this red wine bundt cake dry ingredients (flour, cinnamon, cocoa) are added alternately with the wine so the mixture won't curdle.

Lastly, you mix in the chopped chocolate bits, transfer the mixture to a prepared bundt cake pan, and bake.

Once the cake is cooled, overlap it on a serving plate and pour the red wine ganache on top. Or if you are more confident, overlap the cake and place it on a rack, coat it with the ganache, allow the chocolate to cool and get firm, and then carefully transfer the cake to a serving plate.

Chocolate ganache will take a couple of hours at room temperature to become firm. So you can refrigerate the cake after coating it to speed up this process.

Decorate The Top

You can add some extra chopped chocolate to decorate the top. Or chocolate sprinkles or even your preferred chopped nuts (almonds, walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts). Whatever you decide to use as decor, make sure you sprinkle it on top before the ganache cools and firms, so they will stick on.

Extra Toppings

Serve this delicious wine and chocolate cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or homemade whipped cream. If you want to make a truly fancy red wine dessert, serve it together with this lush red wine mousse.

Recipe