This is mostly based on the Red Wine Chocolate Cake found at Smitten Kitchen, with a few variations, because I am a graduate student, not a New York City-dwelling adult. I cannot always be trusted not to run out of butter and brown sugar. Not to mention that the waste of an egg white, no matter how much it will 'improve' the cake, still gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Here it is the rainy season better know elsewhere as winter. Because I forgot to take a picture of the cake, let's all look at these pretty flowers.
(Magdalen College Gardens, Oxford)
Sooner or later, it will be spring!
Healthy Cake (it's red wine and chocolate, so it's good for you)
adapted from Deb Perlman of Smitten Kitchen
Notes: Using all butter would be a good idea and I'm pretty sure using only light brown sugar would be just fine.
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4c dark brown sugar
1/2c light brown sugar
1/4c white sugar
1 egg
3/4c red wine
1c flour
1/2 c cocoa powder
1/8tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/4tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
1/4tsp cinnamon
Preheat oven to 180C or 325F.
Using a spatula and a large bowl, mix the butter, oil, and sugars until smooth. Add in the egg and red wine. The batter will have little buttery flecks--don't worry about this. Mix in flour and cocoa still blithely ignoring any small lumps. If your soda and baking powder are a bit old and lumpy, use a tea strainer to sift them into the batter (this prevents those horrible chemical lumps). Then add the salt and cinnamon. Mix.
Grease a nine-inch cake tin and pour in your batter. Bake for 25 minutes and then check to see whether a toothpick comes out of the cake clean. If it doesn't continue to bake the cake for five minutes longer until your toothpick comes out clean.
Cool the cake in the pan for ten minutes, then place it on a rack to finish cooling.
Serves at least eight
