Let’s pretend we’re classy here for a week OK? OK. How do we do that you ask? I think if you douse anything in enough wine (provided you don’t tell anyone it came from a box), only a fool would think it hadn’t become a little more artsy and high brow.
Now I know I’ve soaked a lot of things in booze on this blog, but weirdly, soaking fruit in red wine just hadn’t happened yet. My go-to is of course tossing any leftover dried fruit into a mason jar with a whole whack of rum so it’s always on hand for baking (yes “baking”, boozy midnight raids of rummy raisins has never ever happened!!! I swear 😉 ). We also want to be somewhat seasonal here right? And we’re also not looking to include something that’s typically either part of a children’s snack, or the Halloween handout that will most likely get your house egged (I’m looking at you box of raisins! I still love you, but in your stale boxed format, not so much). Where does that lead? To the much more grown up tart and delicious cranberry. Soak those morsels in your favourite red wine for a few days, and you’ll see just what an enchanting combination this is. The sugar from the cranberries dissolves into the wine, the wine itself gets sucked up by the cranberries like they’re on some kind of teenage bender. It’s magical. (Did I just ruin my attempt at classiness by mentioning teenage benders? Oh well, what’s done is done. Once something’s been typed on a computer screen, it’s there forever. Unrelated sidenote – Anyone know what the key labelled “Backspace” is for? I’m scared to press it in case it makes me time travel).
The fact that wine goes with chocolate is a fact so apparent that it doesn’t even bear mentioning (but I like to state the obvious, so there you go. Although interesting “obvious fact” that I stumbled upon while trying to find something hilarious to include here was this one:
Mind blown. But in the interest of having looked up funny obvious things too, here’s another one for you to enjoy:
I had peanuts once that didn’t contain any peanuts. They were a special variety called… NOT F*$K@NG PEANUTS!!)
Final elements to class these up? Why not use some super fancy mini cupcake liners in an elegant black and white? And to keep that theme going, let’s top these with some red wine ganache and some (vegan) white chocolate covered cranberries.
I cran hardly believe how sophisticated these make me feel 😉
Yield: 4 dozen brownie bites
Ingredients
Brownies:
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 3/4 cups red wine
- 1/4 cup raspberry liqueur
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1 tablespoon brown sugar
- 1 1/4 cups flour
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/2 cup vegan butter
- 1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
- 3 vegan egg replacer
- 3/4 cups brown sugar
- 1/4 cup cane sugar
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder
Glaze/Topping:
- 3/4 cups chocolate chips
- 3 tablespoons vegan butter
- 1/3 teaspoon sea salt
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons icing sugar
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons red wine
Directions
- AT LEAST THE DAY BEFORE (or longer if you think about it): Place cranberries in a small bowl and pour in wine, raspberry liqueur, maple syrup and brown sugar. Stir until everything blended together. Allow to marinate for at least a day.
- Preheat oven to 350F and line mini muffin tins with cupcake liners.
- Sift together flour and sea salt in a small bowl.
- In another small, microwave safe bowl, combine butter and chocolate chips and microwave for about 1 minute and then stir until fully melted together. Transfer to a medium-large mixing bowl and add egg replacer, beating with a hand mixer until combined. Mix in both sugars and cocoa powder. Add flour mixture and blend until combined. Stir in the red wine and cranberries (you want the liquid in the batter as well, so no need to strain it out!)
- Fill mini muffin cups about 3/4 full of batter and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with only a few crumbs attached (you want these to stay fudgy, so as long as it’s not liquid, you’re good to take them out).
- Allow brownie bites to cool completely. In the meantime, make the red wine glaze by combining chocolate chips, butter and salt in a small, microwave safe bowl. Microwave for about 1 minutes and stir until melted.
- Whisk in the icing sugar. Warm wine slightly in the microwave (until just boiling) and whisk into chocolate mixture. Allow to cool for 15 minutes or so before spooning/pouring over brownie bites.
- Top with vegan white chocolate dipped cranberries if desired.
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