These decadent, moist, cupcakes were made for my dads birthday, he is a very big fan of red wine and when I saw this recipe (although he’s not a fan of cupcakes) I thought it would be an amazing cake to make for his birthday. Well it turned out he was a fan, a big fan of these cupcakes and he said they were the best cupcakes he’s had, which was really sweet but to be honest he doesn’t eat much cupcakes so I can’t really justify it.
I wanted to add some red wine into icing, just to give it even more of a red wine taste, although this was slightly strong for me as I’m not a huge fan of red wine. If like me your not into your red wine omit the red wine in the icing. The taste of the red wine is stronger in the icing, but the taste in the actual cupcake isn’t as bad and tastes really nice, I enjoyed it.
- 85 g - unsalted butter at room temperature
- 179 g - dark brown sugar
- 50 g - castor sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 large egg yolk at room temperature
- 177 ml - red wine*
- 1 tsp - vanilla extract
- 144 g - plain flour
- 30 g - cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp - baking soda
- 1/2 tsp - baking powder
- 1/4 - salt
- 1/4 tsp heaped - cinnamon
- 70g - softened unsalted butter
- 1 tsp - vanilla extract
- 1 tub (200g)- Philadelphia cream cheese
- 50g - icing sugar
- 38ml - red wine of your choice (optional)
- 1. Preheat the oven to 170°C.
- 2. Line the cupcake tray with 12 cupcake cases.
- 3. In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes (this took a lot longer for me I probably did it for over 7mins) make sure all the brown sugar has mixed throughly.
- 4. Add the egg and yolk and beat well, then the red wine and vanilla. Don’t worry if the batter looks a little uneven.
- 5. In another bowl sift the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together.
- 6. Mix until 3/4 combined, then fold the rest together with a rubber spatula. Spread batter in the cupcake tin.
- 7. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
- For the frosting
- Cream together the butter, cream cheese, red wine and icing sugar until smooth and mixed decorate or pipe the cupcakes accordingly.
- *You can use whichever wine you like.