Chocolate Wine Brownies

Eventually I'll get back to reviewing chocolate, but I seem to be on a roll with these 'alcoholic' brownies. The other day I did a variation on Butter 'Scotch" Brownies for National Butterscotch Browning day, so today I thought I might do Red Wine Brownies. Murder on the Menu/TeamBuilding Unlimited, my interactive entertainment and teambuilding company, does chocolate tastings, and often we do Wine and Chocolate tastings, so this would be a oneshot one-shot.

Here are two very different recipes. Give them both a try and see which one works best for you.

1. Red Wine Brownies

1 cup Merlot
3/4 cup butter
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate (always choose the very best)
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup toasted chopped nuts (pecans or walnuts)-optional

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease (o.k. I use butter) a 13x9-inch baking pan. In a small saucepan, simmer wine over medium heat until reduced to 1/4 cup. Pour into large bowl and set aside. In top of a double boiler, melt butter and chocolate. Pour into wine and whisk until smooth.
In top of double boiler, whisk together eggs, sugar, and vanilla until very light and thick. Pour into chocolate mixture and whisk until smooth. Stir in flour and ½ cup nuts. Pour into pan and sprinkle with remaining nuts.
Bake 40-45 minutes (give it the toothpick test)

I think this is a great icing for the brownies above. Let the brownies cool before frosting.

Chocolate Wine Ganache for the Icing from Brownies Chocolate-Wine Ganaches in Diana's Recipe Book

6 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
2 tablespoons whipping cream
1 tablespoon sweet red kosher wine (or any sweet red wine/try a late harvest dessert Zin)
Whisk all ingredients in small saucepan over medium-low heat until melted and smooth.

2. Red Wine Brownie Bars from Cookie Madness

Cookie Madness is a really neat site. Recently, Anna posted a recipe for a Red Wine Brownie Bar that sounds irresistible and odd at the same time. Haven’t made these yet, but will. Be sure and post on the Cookie Madness site, if you do. She’s looking for comments.

From Cookie Madness, “After combining the two recipes and making a few adjustments, what I got was a dense and firm cake that was just dry enough to soak up the topping that seeps down into it. It doesn’t seem quite soft enough to be traditional American style cake and it’s not quite fudgy enough to be a true brownie. And while the base is chocolate, it’s not so chocolaty that you can’t taste the wine….which is what I was going for. Because why bake with wine if you can’t taste it?

4 oz/114 grams unsalted butter (1 stick)
1 ounce (28 grams) unsweetened chocolate, broken up
1 cup granulated sugar (192 grams)
2 eggs
1 tablespoon red wine (Cabernet Franc)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cups all-purpose flour (spoon lightly into cup to get 94 grams)

Red Wine Icing
3 ½ tablespoons unsalted butter (50 grams)
1 oz unsweetened chocolate
4 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar (60 grams)
3 tablespoons red wine (Cabernet Franc)

Preheat oven to 350 degress F. Line an 8 inch square metal pan with foil and grease bottom of pan only or spray the bottom with cooking spray. Don’t spray the sides.

Melt butter in a medium saucepan set over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and add chocolate. Stir until chocolate melts, then add sugar. Continue heating for about 30 seconds to dissolve some of the sugar. Remove from heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

Whisk the eggs, wine, baking powder and salt together in a mixing bowl. Make sure you’ve whisked out any lumps of stray baking powder. Add a small amount of the slightly cooled chocolate mixture to the eggs and whisk until blended, then whisk in the rest of the chocolate mixture. Fold in the flour with a large spatula – the goal is to mix it, but not beat the flour too much. Pour into pan. Drop pan onto counter from about 5 inches once or twice to remove air bubbles. Bake on center rack and bake for 25-30 minutes or until a tester inserted in center comes out clean.

Meanwhile prepare icing. Melt butter over medium heat. Reduce heat to low and add chocolate, sugar and wine. Continue heating over low, stirring often, until mixture is smooth – don’t let it boil. Pour hot wine mixture over fresh-out-of-the-oven brownie/cake base and let stand for an hour or so. The topping should sink down into the cake and settle on top. Let sit until topping has set. I put mine in the refrigerator to speed up the chocolate-setting. This worked well for the topping, but I think the refrigerator adds to much stiffness to the base so if you chill these, let them come back to room temp before serving.

I like this second brownie recipe since the wine icing really soaks into the brownie.

Maybe I'll combine the two... hmmmm...

Red wine and chocolate: Always a good pairing.

Photo: Cookie Madness

May 9: Butterscotch Brownie Day: add the Scotch

May 9 is yet another esoteric Chocolate Holiday. Let's face it, everyday is a chocolate day, and we really don't need a holiday to eat chocolate . Anyway, May 9 is Butterscotch Brownie Day. However, butterscotch brownies do not include chocolate.
So instead or a recipe for Butterscotch Brownies (although I really do like them), I thought I'd do a brownie recipe with Scotch in it. Makes more sense to me. DrinkoftheWeek.com had a great recipe for Whiskey Brownies. Perfect timing. I've done bourbon brownies, and I've done another recipe for St.Patrick's Day Irish Whiskey brownies, but these brownies should be made with Scotch for Butterscotch Brownie Day. Hey, there's butter in the recipe!
This recipe, of course, can be made without the Scotch — but why would you want to?
I've adapted the recipe a bit.
Butter "Scotch" Brownies
3/4 cup flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup butter
2 tbs. water
2 eggs
1 (6 oz.) package semi-sweet chocolate chips (or the best chocolate you can find)
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 cup Scotch (yeah, it's pretty boozy!)
The recipe at Drink of the Week had a nice looking chocolate icing, but I think we might as well go all the way with the "Scotch" Brownie theme, so here's an icing with Scotch.
Scotch infused Icing
1-1/2 ounces unsweetened chocolate1/4 cup unsalted butter
2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons half-and-half
1 tablespoon good Scotch
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions: In the top of a double boiler, melt the chocolate with the butter. Combine rest of ingredients in a bowl and with electric mixer, beat in melted chocolate and butter. Beat until smooth. Mixture will be runny, but will stiffen as it cools. Frost the cooled brownies.

How's that for a Butter Scotch Brownie?

Chocolate Chocolate Crepes for Mother's Day

So Mother's day is Sunday, and there are so many chocolates and truffles to buy. I'll do a run-down tomorrow, but I thought today, I'd mention one of my favorite breakfast (or dinner) recipes.

Williams Sonoma has a recipe for Dark Chocolate Crepes that is easy and delicious. I'm definitely not the only one who thinks so, because I found great photos and comments for Dark Chocolate Crepes on DelightfulDelicacies.


2 cups milk
2 eggs
2 1/2 Tablespoons melted butter
1 oz. dark chocolate, melted (I use Scharffen Berger, but I've been experimenting with others)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/3 cup cocoa (high quality chocolate)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt

Melt the butter and chocolate together, mixing to combine and smooth out the chocolate. In a large bowl combine the milk and eggs. In a separate, smaller bowl, combine the dry ingredients.

Whisk together the milk and eggs with the dry ingredients, continue whisking as you incorporate the butter and chocolate mixture.

Cover and refrigerate at least an hour, or overnight. Be sure to re-whisk the batter before you cook the crepes.

To Cook the Crepes:
Butter a hot fry pan (small or medium, not large) or crepe pan, then wipe out the excess butter with a paper towel so it is dry-ish. Pour in a small amount of crepe batter and tilt the pan as needed so the batter spreads and covers the bottom of the pan. As the edges begin to peel up flip the crepe with a spatula for a few seconds to cook the other side.

These are fabulous plain, or with strawberries and whipped cream, or with bananas, or with chocolate sauce, and, if you want to be completely decadent, you might want to fill these with chocolate ganache. Definitely drip some good chocolate sauce on these.

Here's an easy Banana Filling with Chocolate chips. I'm a big fan of chocolate and bananas.

Banana filling: Saute bananas cut in 1/4" slices in melted butter with brown sugar. Shake the pan to make sure the bananas are well coated. Cook bananas until they begin to brown and carmelize (3 min?). Flip the bananas and cook other side until brown. Remove from heat. Place bananas and chocolate chips (yes, more chocolate) on half a crepe, fold in half and half again or anyway you like to stuff your crepes. When you've stuffed all your crepes, return to the pan that was used to cook bananas. Heat the crepes over medium heat to melt the chocolate chips. (I didn't give any proportions, because I really believe it depends on how many crepes you make, how thick and rich you want your filling, etc. This is the 'a little bit of this, a little shake of that' recipe.

Chocolate Powered Race Car

Everyone and his mother sent me a copy of the story about the Formula 3 race car that runs on chocolate. It's not as far-fetched as one might think, given that fuel can be made out of almost any vegetable.

The University of Warwick is testing a Formula 3 raced car that is powered by chocolate. The World First race car is built mainly from potatoes and the race-legal steering wheel is made from carrots and other veggies. The seat is made with soybean-oil foam and covered with a flax fiber weave. This is the first Formula 3 racing car made from renewable and sustainable materials.

The car can reach speeds of 125mph around corners and will be hitting a race track later this week. Unfortunately, Formula 3 cars can't race on biodiesel, which is the only thing that keeps this car from meeting all Formula 3 racing standards.

This is an excellent example of how cars, race boats and more can be safer for the environment. This biodiesel engine runs on waste chocolate and vegetable oil. Waste chocolate? Is there really such a thing? Bad chocolate is better than no chocolate, right?

O.k. the reality is that the fuel is really waste chocolate oil from chocolate factories which is not recommended for consumption.

Fumes would be heavenly!!!