sidecar - hitch along for food

Chocolate Cake with Port

After a week of gloom and rain it seemed like time for comfort food.  This recipe has been tempting me, sitting on my kitchen counter in the cookbook holder since I visited my family back in August.  The siren song of chocolate cake finally got to me.  The cake is one that my best friend's Mom used to make for birthdays.  They called it wine cake (or who knows maybe it was whine cake, since we clamored for it so regularly).  I asked if I could have the recipe for my Mom, gave it to my Mom, and then never ate it at my house.  I guess my Mom didn't love it as much as I did.

But the cake stuck in my memory.  So I pulled out my Mom's wooden recipe box to see if she still had the recipe.  It was buried deep, but it was there.  She remembered it, but said she has never made it (what, she never had a gloomy week?) 

It calls for port, and I guess that is where the wine part of the cake came in.   I have had to make some changes to the recipe.  The original was too gooey (which can have its advantages as a comfort food, but twice the center of the cake collapsed).   

It is a chocolatey antidote to gloom.  The port gives it a rich quality.  My memory did not cheat me, and I am happy to have this cake back.  Maybe I will even make it for my Mom.

Chocolate Cake with Port (Wine Cake)

1 cup butter

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/4 cup water

1/2 cup tawny port

1/2 cup buttermilk

2 cups flour

1/4 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a bundt pan thoroughly.

With an electric mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy.  Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition.  Add vanilla and mix well.  

In a separate bowl, mix together water, port and buttermilk with a fork.  Set aside.

Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

Add sifted ingredients and port mix to butter and sugar mixture, alternating between well and dry ingredients and mixing well after each addition.  

Pour cake mix into pan.  Bake for approximately 45 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck into the cake comes out clean.  Place cooking pan on a cooling rack for 10 minutes and then remove cake from bundt pan and cool on rack thoroughly.

You may notice in the picture that I frosted the cake.  But, I think next time I would not frost it, and recommend dusting with powdered sugar instead.  It was almost too fudgey with the frosting.  But for any fudge lovers, I am providing the frosting recipe.  You may want to drizzle just some of the frosting and use the rest for another purpose (like eating straight from the bowl with a spoon, my preferred alternate).

Cake Frosting

1/2 cup butter

1/4 cup cocoa

2 cups powdered sugar

6 tablespoons milk

1 tablespoon port

Melt butter with cocoa in a small pan.  Place butter/cocoa mix in mixing bowl.  Add sugar, milk and port and mix thoroughly.  Add additional milk as necessary to get a pourable texture.  Drizzle frosting over cooled cake.

Pistachio Rice

I love this time of year when we still have enough warmth to go jacket less but the leaves are beginning to turn.  We are still grilling outside, but at the same time, I am starting to crave comfort food, red wine and more aromatic spicing.  This dish bridges the gap.  We ate it alongside grilled pork tenderloin.  

The idea came from the Grand Diplome series I wrote about a couple of months ago.  It was a suggested stuffing for a Christmas dinner featuring Roast Suckling Pig. Seriously, if anyone reading this has ever prepared a roast suckling pig at home, you have to leave a comment and tell me about it.  I once went to Poland for a wedding and they wheeled out a spit roasted pig at midnight with sparklers in it.  That was an amazing experience in more ways then one, but still, can't imagine procuring a whole baby pig here in the 'burbs and putting it in the oven, much less setting it in the middle of the table with a lemon in it's mouth, as it appeared in the Grand Diplome.

But do try the rice.

PISTACHIO RICE

1 onion, finely chopped

3 tablespoons butter

2 cups rice

3 1/2 cups chicken stock or broth

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 cup shelled pistachios

1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions

salt and pepper

Heat oven to 350 degrees.  In an oven proof casserole, melt butter on stove top.  Add onion and cook over medium heat until soft and translucent.  Add rice and stir a minute or two, until coated with butter. Add stock and spices and bring to a boil.  Cover and place in oven.  Bake for approximately 25 minutes, adding additonal stock during baking if the pan becomes too dry (I did not find that I needed to add any additional stock).  Remove from oven and cool slightly.  Add pistachios and salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle green onions across the top for serving.