Whipping egg whites for a red wine chocolate chiffon cake

Red Wine Chocolate Chiffon Cake with a Red Wine Ganache

For the red wine chiffon cake, I started off by heating up the merlot in a sauce pan. Next, I sifted the cocoa into the hot merlot and let it cool. While the cocoa mixture is cooling, I mixed together the flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt. I then added a mixture of egg yolks and oil. Once the cocoa mixture was cool, I added that next. In my KitchenAid I whipped the egg whites and baking powder, a substitute for cream of tartar, until stiff peaks formed. I then folded the egg whites into the batter. Once the egg whites were all folded in, I spooned the batter into an ungreased tube pan. I ran a knife through the batter to make sure I got rid of all air pockets. I then baked the cake for 65 minutes at 325*. Once the cake was done, I inverted the cake while it cooled. While the cake was cooling, I made the red wine ganache. For the ganache I put the pinot noir, heavy cream, and semi-sweet baking chocolate into a sauce pan over low heat. Once everything was melted together, I added the butter and let it cool down. Once both the cake and ganache were cooled down, I popped the cake out of the pan and drizzled it with the ganache.

Dirzzling red wine ganache on a red wine chocolate chiffon cake

https://www.sprinklebakes.com/2015/06/chocolate-red-wine-chiffon-cake.html

As I was making this cake, I was sure I was going to screw this one up, the batter looked too light and was very grainy and nothing seemed like it was going right. I had to make the decision to either leave out the cream of tartar or find a replacement, as it turns out I actually did not have any in my plethora of spices in my cabinet. Turns out that the baking powder I added to the egg whites worked out just fine. My next issue was my two-piece tube pan, that I got second hand, and have yet to use before this. Well, I guess this tube pan does not have the greatest seal on the bottom as it leaked batter while baking.

I was relatively suppressed at how great this cake turned out! This will definitely be put into the books. Next time I may use a different type of red wine for the ganache, one that has less acidity and tannins.
The cake itself is very light, airy, and spongey with a deep chocolate taste with subtle red wine notes of dark tree fruits. You can really taste the red wine in the ganache, the tannins and acidity are very present with just a slight hint of dark tree fruits and cloves.

Written in Fiddleheads Coffee
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