Who doesn’t love chocolate cake? And who doesn’t love a great Barossa Shiraz, like our Zip Line Shiraz?

Exactly.

What makes a Barossa Shiraz so special you ask… well, while styles vary, Barossa Shiraz is generally a full-bodied wines with beautiful ripe, dark fruit flavours and wonderfully balanced acidity. Richly textured with savoury notes of spice, they are among the world’s most recognisable and celebrated Shiraz.

I thought International Chocolate Cake Day (27 January) would be an excellent opportunity to get my cake mixer out and have a go at tweaking one of my favourite, fail proof recipes from NZ’s culinary queen Annabel Langbein, by swapping the coffee for Zip Line Shiraz. Because, why not.

Thus, I introduce to you; Brockenchack’s Shiraz Spiked Chocolate Cake;

Top Tips |

  • If you wouldn’t drink the wine, don’t bake or cook with it as the quality of the wine will impact your result
  • My oven runs hot so I reduced the cooking time for cupcakes to 17 minutes
  • I dusted with icing sugar, but you could obviously slather with ganache
  • No, you won’t get drunk from this cake as the alcohol cooks out

Ingredients |

  • 3 cups self-raising flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
  • 3/4 cup good-quality cocoa
  • 2 tsp baking soda, sifted
  • 200 g butter, softened
  • 1 cup milk, buttermilk, or plain yogurt (I used oat milk, but Greek yogurt works great)
  • 3 large eggs
  • 1 cup Zip Line Shiraz (+ 1 glass for the baker, to enjoy while working their magic)

Method |

  • STEP 1 | Preheat oven to 160°C fan bake. Grease a 30cm-diameter springform cake tin* and line the base with baking paper.
  • STEP 2 | Place all ingredients in a large bowl, electric mixer or food processor and mix or blitz until the ingredients are combined and the butter is fully incorporated.
  • STEP 3 | Pour into prepared tin and smooth top.
  • Bake for 1 hour or until a skewer inserted into the center comes out clean. Allow to cool in the tin.

*VARIATION | To make chocolate cupcakes, follow as above but only bake for 15-20 minutes.

Let us know how you go; we’d love to see your pictures and reviews.

-Chloë, Marketing Coordinator, wine nerd, and now recipe tester.

Adapted from Annabel Langbein’s Ultimate Chocolate Cake Recipe.