Starting your blog with a bang…

… or with one cake at a time. In one of the several blogs I am literally addicted to, I once read that you should start your blog with a bang. That idea has kinda put me under pressure.
I  started questioning myself: which one of the cakes is actually ‘a bang’? Which one, is that one precious cake, that would set the tone of my blog and foremost, my cookbook project.
What you might realized already, took me some time. There really is not that ONE cake. Only lots of cakes that fit different occasions. So I started off with something, that for me, recalls everything of this season: my cherished red-wine pound cake.
The earthiness of spices and red wine combined in a soft, airy, chewy pound cake. If you love autumn, you gotta love this. Even if you don’t like autumn, you will love this cake.




Ingredients

300g gold brown sugar
300g soft butter
6 eggs
400g plain white flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tbs. non-sweetened cocoa
250 ml.  dry red wine
150g dark chocolate sprinkles

I know, some of you might start thinking, red wine in cake? What is the benefit of that? Well, I can tell you, it is worth trying. The flavor of some good, fruity but dry red wine (because, really, you will wanna drink the rest) mixed with cinnamon and unsweetened cocoa does seal the deal. I am not so sure if really all the alcohol dissolves when baking the cake, but my mama and also the mothers of my friends were not too worried about that when we were taking the cake out for lunch at the zoo or to other lovely kiddo things. 

As always you should start by mixing butter and sugar until its fluffy and creamy. I use Dutch golden muscovado sugar here, for it has a gorgeous caramel note, but if you only got regular white or brown caster sugar, that works just as good. Put in the eggs one at a time, just as the butter, at room temperature. (Just take it out of the fridge an hour ahead.) Mix with the spices and the flour, then slowly pour in the wine. Gleaming creaminess- if you like snooping cake dough, that is the one I would go for. Fold in the dark chocolate chips (or chopped dark chocolate), and of it goes for an hour (but check at 45 min.) in a 160 C° oven.

Good book, rainy day, glass leftover-wine – this cake. Love autumn!