Wine and Cheese Cupcakes - Try Them At Your Next Wine Party

Shiraz wine, walnuts, Camembert cheese, and dark chocolate could be wine bar fare at its best. In my cupcake-centric world, however, they are the ingredients in wine and cheese cupcakes.

Serve these wine and cheese cupcakes at your next wine party.  In fact, plan a wine party around them.  These wine and cheese cupcakes are worth it!  Don't be scared by the Camembert.  It's a stinky cheese, for sure, but once it's baked into the cupcakes, your guests won't detect it; they will only note a that these chocolate cupcakes have a sublime sophistication. They are chocolate cupcakes all grown up.

Note:  While it's a common practice to nose wine before drinking it, be careful about nosing the cupcakes.  You may end up with a frosting-covered schnoz.

Red Wine Chocolate Ganache - This May Be My Favorite Ganache Ever

I thought a red wine chocolate ganache could be good, but I had no idea just how good it would be.  After tasting my red wine chocolate ganache, I wanted to give myself a standing ovation.  This may be the best ganache that I have ever made.  It's intensely chocolaty and buttery smooth with a robust sweetness from the wine.
Try the red wine chocolate ganache on your cupcakes (any will do, but I'll tell you about my wine and cheese cupcakes in my next post) or make a big pot of red wine chocolate ganache to dip fruit or bread into at your next wine party.  Don't be surprised when people start bowing down to you and begging you to make it again.

Cuddrireddra - The Cookie Recipe Worth A Four Year Wait

Orange, red wine, and cinnamon come together in cuddrireddra, an Italian deep fried cookie that resembles a biscotti in texture.  Don't let the frying scare you off.  Everyone was surprised to hear that the cuddrireddra were deep fried - unlike donuts or funnel cake, they are not at all greasy.  The cuddrireddra have a respectable crunch without being rock hard and the flavor is unique but comforting at the same time - like the smell of home cooked food that sometimes fills the hallways of apartment buildings.  One taster couldn't help but remark over and over again that cuddrireddra are much better than chocolate chip cookies.  It's no surprise that she felt that way; cuddrireddra are the cookies that were worth tracking down for four years.

Charoses Recipe - Mom's Recipe

Charoses is a reason to look forward to Passover. I would eat charoses year round, but then I wouldn't enjoy it as much over Passover. I could eat it by the bowl - cold or hot. Charoses is almost always served cold, but it's actually great after 30 seconds or so in the microwave - try it!

While I typically experiment and drastically change recipes, there is no messin' with Momma's charoses. Well, except for the fact that I used up this charoses in a Kosher for Passover charoses cupcake.

Charoses Recipe

Mom's charoses recipe is actually from The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook. As I look at this digital picture of the cookbook, I can picture the more worn out version of it sitting in Mom's kitchen and feel all warm and fuzzy. If you want your own worn out version, you can get used copies of this book for only $4 on Amazon!

Here is the recipe twice removed from the book - emailed by my mom and then edited with notes by me:

• 1 C chopped apples (Mom uses a couple of different apples to make it
• interesting.)
• 1/4 C chopped nuts (We always use walnuts.)
• 1 t sugar or honey (This is not a choice. Use honey!)
• Grated rind of 1/2 lemon (I ended up using a whole lemon. The more lemon, the merrier.)
• 1/2 t cinnamon or more to taste
  
• 2 tablespoons red wine (about) (Don't go for fancy wine here. You want Manischewitz Concord Grape. I can't imagine charoses with any other wine. It's really an essential ingredient.)

1. Mix all ingredients.
   
2. Add enough wine to bind the mixture.

Christmas Cupcakes - Mulled Wine Cupcakes with Chestnut Butter Frosting

Other Christmas Cupcakes and Chanukah Cupcakes:

• Eggnog Cupcakes
  
• Gingerbread Cupcakes
• Blue Chanukah Cupcakes
  

Christmas cupcakes made with mulled wine will have Santa begging for more (he likes his wine, you know - why do you think he has such a ruddy complexion?). These Christmas cupcakes have a complex adult taste, but they are sweet, moist, and festive enough to serve to the entire family.

The only problem I had with my Christmas cupcakes was that the recipe only made twelve. I would highly recommend doubling it - they are that good! One warning though, the wine flavor is not overpowering. Don't go in expecting a heavy hit of wine flavor.

A Note About Christmas Cupcakes and Me

Photo credit: TVparty.com

I don't celebrate Christmas. As a child, I did not ever put out cupcakes for Santa (or cookies for that matter). The staging of this photo was the first time I ever wrote a "For Santa" sign. However, as a Jewish child, I did believe in Santa.

For some reason, I had a stuffed Rudolph doll. I lived in New York, but we always went to Florida to stay with my grandparents over Christmas (I know - how stereotypically Jewish can you get!). On Christmas Eve, I would always take my reindeer doll and set it by the door to the condo to make sure that Rudolph could go out and help Santa deliver toys to the Christian kids.

Before Making Mulled Wine Cupcakes

Before making mulled wine cupcakes, make sure you've made some mulled wine. Duh! Check out my post on mulled wine for instructions.

Mulled Wine Cupcake Recipe

I based the cupcake recipe on the recipe for Minko's Do the Hokey Pokey cupcakes. They were so yummy that I thought they would be a good starting point. Here is the adapted recipe:

Makes 12 cupcakes

• 2 C flour
  
• 1 1/2 t baking powder
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 1/4 t allspice
• 1/4 clove
  
• 3/4 C unsalted butter, softened
• 2/3 C sugar
• finely grated zest of 1 orange
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 C sour cream
• 2/3 C mulled wine, room temperature
  

1. A few hours before you are ready to bake, combine the orange zest and the sugar in a bowl. This will let the orange flavor infuse into the sugar.
2. With a fork, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, and spices in a bowl.
3. Beat butter, grated orange zest and sugar in a large bowl for 1 minute, until light and fluffy.
4. Beat in eggs and sour cream until blended.
5. Alternately fold in flour mixture and mulled wine in three additions, beginning and ending with flour.
6. Fill cupcake liners 3/4 full.
   
7. Bake at 350 F for about 25 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Chestnut Butter Frosting

Check out my chestnut butter frosting recipe post for the details on how to make the frosting for this cupcake.

Mulled Wine Syrup

I drizzled some mulled wine syrup over each frosted cupcake. This is by no means necessary, but it's a nice splash of red and it tasted quite good. To make the syrup, combine 1 cup of mulled wine and 1 cup of sugar and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes.

Mulled Wine - Not To Be Confused with Mold Wine

Mulled wine is a perfect drink for the holidays, but be careful how you say "mulled wine." When I told my friends about the mulled wine I was making, invariably they would hear "mold wine" and get grossed out.

Mulled Wine vs. Mold Wine

Mulled wine should never be confused with mold wine.

Mulled wine is wine simmered with spices like cinnamon, allspice, and cloves, served hot. Mulled wine is delicious and nice to drink while settling in by the fire.

Mold wine is wine made in prison. I know this because I read an excerpt from the book "You are Going to Prison" on the blog The Sneeze (this must be some book - it costs $60 for a used copy on Amazon):

One of the problems you have right away with making wine in prison is the difficulty getting yeast. It's a strictly forbidden item and you might not be able to get any. In this case you can improvise the by using slices of bread, preferably moldy (but not dry) and preferably inside a sock for easier straining.

The steps to making prison wine (mold wine) and the success of that endeavor are detailed - with photos - on The Sneeze. If you want something good to drink, the steps to making mulled wine are below.

Mulled Wine Recipe

I got the mulled wine recipe from Steph at A Year of Crockpotting. I've reprinted it below with a few changes from the original.

Serves 6-8 (or 4ish if you are going to use some it in mulled wine cupcakes)

• 2 bottles dry red wine (Go for the cheap stuff)
• 1 C orange juice
  
• 2 clementines (You could use any orange, but I happened to have a box of clementines on hand)
  
• 3/4 C white sugar (I forgot to add the sugar the first time and it was nasty. Don't make this mistake!)
  
• 1/2 t allspice
• 1/2 t cinnamon
• 4 cinnamon sticks
• 4 whole cloves

1. Open the wine and dump it in the crockpot (use a 6 quart or larger crockpot).
2. Pour in the orange juice.
3. Stir in the sugar, and add the ground spices.
4. Float the cinnamon sticks and whole cloves on top.
   
5. Slice the clementines into rings, and float the rings on top.
6. Cover and cook on high for 2 hours, or on low for 4. You can continue to cook on low for much longer than that and it keeps getting better. We had some in the evening and then left it on low overnight and had some more the next day.
   
7. Ladle into mugs.

Mulled Wine Cupcakes

This mulled wine was used in some tasty mulled wine cupcakes.