The recipe for these fabulous red wine cupcakes comes from Stella Parks’ fabulous book, Bravetart [paid link] (it’s one of the best baking books out there). She dubs them red wine velvet cupcakes and offers them as an alternative to the heavily food-colored red velvet cupcakes. These are like a grown up red velvet cupcake.

Orange, red wine, and cinnamon come together in cuddrireddra, an Italian deep fried cookie that resembles a biscotti in texture. Don’t let the frying scare you off. Everyone was surprised to hear that the cuddrireddra were deep fried – unlike donuts or funnel cake, they are not at all greasy. The cuddrireddra have a respectable crunch without being rock hard and the flavor is unique but comforting at the same time – like the smell of home cooked food that sometimes fills the hallways of apartment buildings.

One taster couldn’t help but remark over and over again that cuddrireddra are much better than chocolate chip cookies. It’s no surprise that she felt that way; cuddrireddra are the cookies that were worth tracking down for four years.

While I typically experiment and drastically change recipes, there is no messin’ with Momma’s charoset.

Charoses Recipe

Mom’s charoset recipe is actually from The Complete American-Jewish Cookbook [paid link]. As I look at this digital picture of the cookbook, I can picture the more worn out version of it sitting in Mom’s kitchen and feel all warm and fuzzy. If you want your own worn out version, you can get used copies of this book for only $4 on Amazon [paid link]!