Oh yeah, you read that right. Red Wine. Chocolate. Cupcakes. I’ll wait for you to wipe your mouth. 

The first time I made these was a few years ago for my friend, Libbie’s birthday. Is it wrong to call her a wino?... Let's go with wine enthusiast. I wanted to make something super fun and decadent, and these were perfect. Especially with more wine. 

Now several years later, my husband and I happen to live next door to some of the greatest people on the planet, so when I found out that it was one of their birthdays the Sunday before Valentine’s Day, I thought these cupcakes would be perfect. I’m not big on Valentine’s Day, but with a food blog, I should probably post something yummy, right? All hail transparency. It’s also super nice being surrounded by good people that I can give all my baked goods to so I don’t sit in the house eating them every day. 

The cupcake recipe is not my own - I’m not about to try making a better cupcake recipe than the ones out there, and this one is from our favorite, Ina Garten. I.E. the woman who has the best life (at least on print). The recipe uses both buttermilk and sour cream with the chocolate, which helps to cut the sweetness, but maintain the moisture. And theres also a bit of brewed coffee, which is so important when making something chocolatey. The coffee brings out the natural flavor of the chocolate, and gives it a really amazing cocoa-ness. The result is a super moist, super chocolatey cupcake that is both fluffy and dense at the same time, but not overly sweet. 

Where does the red wine flavor come from? I make red wine syrup. A few years ago, I was on a balsamic reduction kick. Everything I made was drizzled in it, but it got expensive, so I started making it on my own. One day, while trying not to die from the horrible smell of reducing balsamic (seriously, it’s awful), I poured a glass of wine that had been in the fridge a little too long. It tasted like vinegar, and I spit it out. But it got me thinking about how yummy a reduction could be from wine, and if it would even work. So I experimented and tried making simple syrup using wine instead of water. But simple syrup uses a 1:1 ratio, so with wine, it was way too sweet. When the wine reduces, the alcohols go away, leaving the natural sugars; science makes it sweeter. And I tried reducing it with no sugar, like balsamic, and it didn’t get the syrupy texture I wanted, so I knew I needed at least some sugar. After a few rounds of experimentation, I found the perfect ratio of wine to sugar, and the syrup is amazing. It’s great to flavor whipped creams, butter creams, drizzle over ice cream or fruit - it has this amazing, acidic and sweet red wine taste, but all the alcohol is cooked out, so you don’t have to worry about judgy parents if kids are eating it. I bet it would be amazing if you mixed it with the mascarpone cream in tiramisu… 

Back to the cupcakes. If you happen to be someone that wants to make some kind of dazzling dessert for your SO or your friends (or your cat) on Valentine's Day, then this recipe is the one for you. It’s not super complicated and the results are always jaw dropping. I hope you like it!

Ingredients for the cupcakes:

• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar (I used cane sugar)
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons really good vanilla (I couldn’t resist)
• 1 cup buttermilk (if you can find full fat buttermilk, it’s the best)
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 2 tablespoons of brewed coffee
• 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

Ingredients for the wine syrup:

• 2 cups red wine
• 2/3 cup granulated sugar

Ingredients for the frosting:

• 12 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3-4 cups powdered sugar
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• 3-4 tablespoons wine syrup (to taste)

Directions:

Make the wine syrup first, since it needs to cool before you can use it. Add the wine and sugar to a saucepan, and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. 

When it boils, reduce the heat to low, and simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. 

Remove from heat and pour into a separate container to cool completely on the counter. When it cools, it should be syrupy, like slightly thinner maple syrup. If you make this a few days ahead of time, you can store it in the fridge for up to a week.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees, and line cupcake pans with paper liners (the recipe will probably make about 2 dozen cupcakes). 

Gather your ingredients as follows:

Dry ingredients into a bowl, sifted (cocoa powder, salt, flour, baking powder)
Sugars and butter into the bowl of your mixer
Eggs and vanilla in a small prep bowl
Buttermilk, sour cream, and coffee, whisked together in a bowl

Cream together the butter and sugars until they’re super fluffy, on high speed, about 4-5 minutes. Lower the speed to medium and add the eggs and vanilla, one egg at a time, until everything is well combined. 

On low speed, alternate adding the buttermilk mixture and the dry ingredients in three batches (i.e. add 1/3 of the dry ingredients and mix, then 1/3 of the buttermilk mixture and mix, etc.). Do this until everything is blended, but don’t over mix.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and use a rubber spatula to fold everything together the rest of the way. 

Scoop the batter into the cupcake pans—a standard ice cream scoop is perfect for each cupcake. I don’t have one of those, so I used my little one, and I think three scoops of that was too big, so my cupcakes were a little oversized (but I’m not a professional baker, and they taste amazing, so whatever). If you don’t have one…then fill the cupcake liners about 2/3 of the way up. 

Bake on the middle rack of your oven for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Brush them with some of the wine syrup as soon as you pull them out of the oven, and cool them in the cupcake pans for ten minutes. Then pull them out of the pans to cool the rest of the way on the counter. 

Make the buttercream frosting: add the butter to the bowl of your mixer, and whip with the paddle attachment for about a minute. Add a cup of powdered sugar, and mix on low until combined, and then turn the mixer up to high and whip together for about 2 minutes. 

Add the vanilla and red wine syrup, and mix on low until combined, then add another cup of powdered sugar. When that sugar is mixed in, turn the mixer up to high and whip together for a few minutes. You should have a beautifully pink frosting coming together at this point. If it looks like it’s separating a little, that’s ok, it just needs more sugar. Continue adding sugar in half-cup increments until you have a fluffy, buttercream frosting. It usually takes 3-4 cups - depending on taste, butter, etc. Do not skimp on whipping here - it takes several minutes to really get that frosting texture you’re wanting. 

Cupcake assembly:

Frost each cupcake with the buttercream frosting. I used a piping bag to make it fancy, but pipe as you please! To finish the cupcakes, drizzle a bit of the syrup over the top of the cupcakes. If you want, you can add some chocolate shavings to the top as well, or melt some dark chocolate into the wine syrup for an extra punch of chocolate. 

Note: You can totally make this as a layer cake, too - I think it would be stunning as a double layer cake, frosted with the buttercream and drizzled with the wine syrup. If you do that, the cooking time is slightly higher - like 30-35 min. 

NOM.

***Here's a link to the original cupcake recipe that I used. Thanks, Ina!