This cake... this cake. This cake has the most incredible texture. It's fudgy and moist, bold with the flavors of dark chocolate and red wine from wine mclaren vale, and covered with a luscious boozy ganache.
This recipe makes one full-size 6-inch layer, making it a perfect dessert for two for Valentine's Day or any time. I love making smaller cakes - less leftovers equal less guilt, either from wasting cake or from having to eat the whole thing ourselves.
Ugh, this cake is just so incredibly special. What's more, it only uses ½ cup of red wine total, so you can keep the rest of the bottle around to have with dinner (or to just, you know... drink). You may also be interested to know what items that absolutely should not be on your date night menu.
The recipe is easy and comes together quickly. Decorated with chocolate shards, you can create an impressive dessert in appearance and taste for a perfect end to a romantic dinner. Enjoy!
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Red Wine Dark Chocolate Cake For Two
- Yield: 1 6-inch cake 1x
Ingredients
- Chocolate Shards:
- 3oz (about ½ cup) chocolate or chocolate chips of your choice
- Cake:
- ½ cup all purpose flour
- ½ cup white granulated sugar
- 3 TBS Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 egg
- ¼ cup buttermilk
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- ¼ tsp vanilla
- ¼ cup red wine (choose a sweeter wine)
- Ganache:
- ¼ cup heavy cream
- ¼ cup red wine
- 1 cup chopped dark chocolate OR dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Chocolate Shards:
- In a microwavable bowl, melt chocolate in 30 second increments, stirring well between each one.
- When chocolate is fully melted, spread onto a piece of wax paper, making sure it's not too thin. Cover with a second piece of wax paper and press lightly to remove bubbles. Place on a flat surface in the freezer until hardened, and then break into shards of desired size. Leave them in the freezer until ready to decorate the cake.
- Cake:
- Preheat oven to 300F. Generously grease a 6-inch cake pan with shortening or softened butter and place a circle of parchment paper in the bottom of the pan. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, stir together flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Add the eggs, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla and stir together. Add the red wine and mix until batter is smooth and just combined, being careful not to overmix.
- Pour batter into the prepared cake pan and bake on the center rack of oven for 28-30 minutes until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs. Ovens may vary, so start checking before the recommended bake time to be sure you do not overbake.
- Allow cake to cool completely in the pan, and then run a butter knife around the outside edge of the cake to help loosen it before removing cake from pan.
- Ganache:
- In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, add the heavy cream and wine, stir together, and heat until steaming and bubbles begin to form.
- Remove from heat, add the chocolate, and cover for 5 minutes.
- Open the lid and whisk the mixture until totally smooth. Set aside for about 30 minutes to cool. You want the ganache to be thicker and easily spreadable, but not too thin.
- Pour some of the ganache onto the center of the cake and use the back of a spoon to gently push the ganache off of the side so that it drizzles down the sides of the cake. You can use as much or as little of the ganache as you like. Decorate with chocolate shards.
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Wanda
In one week, we have make this cake 4 times!!! Excellent recipe!,Thank you!
Rachael Wolpert
I SO want to try this. What particular brand of wine did you use/what brand would you recommend using? This would be the first time that I incorporate alcohol into my baking (I am new to the baking scene), and wanted to see if there was one pairing that tastes especially delicious!
Kristopher
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Serena Adsit
Love this recipe! Thank you 🙂
Francesca
Was it good? I was thinking and dying to try out this recipe. The only thing that I am worried about is the alcohol if it's good for my kids. I wanted red wine as well in the ganache how can I cook the alcohol from the red wine?
Erin
The alcohol in the wine will already be baked out of the cake, but the alcohol will still be there in the ganache. You could maybe use a tart grape juice in the ganache instead of the wine?
Meredith P Reid
I'm 99% sure the alcohol will be gone from the ganache, as well. If it is still a concern, start with the wine in the pan, heat it up, then add the cream.
Erin
Thanks so much for the tips and advice! 🙂
Mireille Bravo
Can the recepi be doubled for a bigger cake?
Erin
Certainly! Bake it at the same temperature but the baking time will likely change based on the size/depth of the larger pan. Just check it early and often. 🙂
Heather
Hi there! Looks great! If I were to want to make this for a larger group, should I double it to fit in a 9inch round cake pan. Do you think I need to adjust the cooking time or temperature?
Erin
Yes, a 9-inch cake pan should work. Keep the temperature the same but it will likely take a bit longer to bake. I've only made this particular recipe in the smaller pan so I'm not 100% sure how the texture will behave but if you try it let me know! 🙂
PN
Hi, can i bake this cake without ganache?
Karri
Is there something non-alcoholic I can use to substitute for the red wine?
Erin
Hi Karri! You could try to use a nice tart grape juice instead, though it would be sweeter than the wine so you may need to play with the amount of sugar in the recipe. I also don't know if the difference in acidity would affect the cake texture or not. If you try to experiment with that substitution, let me know how it works for you!
Adornamie
Good day, love the recipe but I wanted to know if I could substitute the 3tbs of cocoa powder for melted cocoa bars. if I can how much should I use?
Erin
Hi! Are you referring to the melted chocolate used in the ganache glaze? If so, I found a recipe for ganache using cocoa powder (though I haven't tried it myself) hope this helps: http://www.cakespy.com/blog/2014/12/13/how-to-make-ganache-with-cocoa-powder.html Since this is a small cake, I would recommend cutting that recipe in half (or more) when using it for this cake.