Au Revoir - For Now

As you may have gathered from my previous recipe, the Vino Rosso Bundt Cake, the post was originally written in early January.  Due to whatever technical difficulties, the site refused to let me post photos, so I procrastinated in making the updates.   It seems that this post was inevitabl: I've determined this is going to be my last udpate.  At least for a few months. 

My reasons are simple.  Though initially a fun concept, this project is entirely too time-consuming and I have no extra time. Cooking and baking have always been joyful and stress-reducing for me, but now there is all this extra pressue to take pictures and write things down and follow-up with editing and posting.  I'm finishing my final semester of law school, worried about passing the bar exam, and planning my wedding. It's all a bit much to handle at this point in my life.  While I won't say I'll never blog again, it's not going to be happening over the next few months.  And let's be honest - with how few and far between the posts have been, there's not a whole lot to be missed, now is there? :-) 

Thank you for following along with my work, and if I do make any changes to the blog, it will appear on my Facebook and Pinterest pages.  Until then...

- Sarah

Vino Rosso Chocolate Bundt Cake

For Christmas this year, I received an adorable rose shaped Bundt cake pan that I have been dying to use.  Unfortunately, I was on calorie overload from the holidays, so I was putting off doing anything with it.  Now that enough time has elapsed between the holidays to allow my liver and pancreas to recover, I was ready to get back in the kitchen and put the cake to use.  My next challenge was to use up some culinary remnants of my family's holiday dining.  I opted to make this devilishly rich bundt cake, utilizing both left over red table wine and buttermilk.  The end was a beautifully decadent and moist chocolate cake, that is even tastier than it looks.

 

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for bundt pan
• 3/4 cup dutch-processed cocoa powder, plus extra for bundt pan and dusting baked cake
• 2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 cup red wine
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Powdered sugar for dusting

Directions:

1.  Position rack in lower third of oven.  Preheat oven to 325 F.  Butter and dust bundt pan with flour and a little cocoa powder.

2.  In a large mixing bowl, combine all dry ingredients.  Whisk together to combine.  In the bowl of a large stand mixer, mix sugar and eggs until light in color and sugar has dissolved.  Scrape down sides of bowl and add buttermilk.  Mix on medium speed until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add red wine, olive oil, and vanilla.  Mix on medium speed until well combined.  Add one third of the dry mix to the wet batter at a time, mixing on low-speed until just incorporated before adding more. Scrape down the sides of the bowl again. Once all dry ingredients have been added and incorporated, mix on medium speed for 2 minutes.

3.  Pour batter in to prepared bundt pan, leaving 1 1/2" inches of room for cake to rise.  Do not overfill.  If you have remaining cake batter, you can use this for cupcakes, baking at 350 F for 18-20 minutes on the middle oven rack.  Place bundt pan on cookie sheet and put in oven to bake for 45-55 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center of cake ring comes out clean.  Allow cake to cool in pan before attempting to remove.  The cake will begin to pull away from the sides of the pan the longer it cools.  Invert cake on cake stand once cool.  Dust with desired amount of powdered sugar and cocoa powder.