Hey, everybody! Do you need another reason why wine is great? You can bake with it!
This is a discovery I came across one night while Googling recipes that use wine. We all know that wines are used in savory dishes, sauces, and some desserts that involve poaching or perhaps a glaze, but I wanted to find something healthy in the spirit of the New Year.
I found this article written by Elaine Magee, MPH, RD on Webmd.com titled "6 Secrets of Cooking With Wine" and one statement caught my eye: you can replace the fat in certain baked goods with equal parts wine or sherry. This reduced the fat and adds new flavor.
Really…
I had just bought a bottle of Shady Creek Winery’s Pinot Grigio, Lake Michigan Shore. I had planned to make a seafood dish with it, or just share a glass with the boyfriend. But it was sitting there on the counter, just begging to go on a baking adventure with me.
So I relented and grabbed a box of strawberry cake mix from the cupboard. Now you’re probably thinking that the combination of strawberries and Pinot Grigio is a little odd, and so did I, but I gave it a shot. The recipe only called for 1/3 cup of oil (or wine in this case) so if things didn’t turn out well then it wasn’t a waste of wine.
I followed the directions, mixing the batter, pouring it into a greased pan, placing it in a pre-heated oven, and obediently kept the oven door closed the entire time while it baked. Peeking makes the wait for cake longer.
The timer dinged and I cautiously opened the oven door, like I expected a goopy, drunk cake monster to jump out at me.
There were no monsters, only a smooth, peachy-pink colored cake. I took the cake out of the oven and let it cool before frosting it. They boyfriend hovered in the background, playing the guinea pig to my edible experiment.
I frosted the pink cake with green frosting (It was all I had, don’t judge. Plus, it looked like a watermelon.) and sliced it up. The boyfriend and I each took a taste and the mutual verdict was: It was quite delicious.
The cake turned out moist and there was an added flavor that complimented the strawberry flavor. It did stick to the pan a bit due to the loss of fat, but that’s nothing that nonstick cooking spray can’t fix next time.
So here’s to broadening our wine horizons!