How to pair alcohol with cake

There's more to life than tea and cake. Namely, booze.

Tea and cake. Wine and cheese. Some food and drink pairings are as well-established as Ant and Dec, fish and chips, and Sunday mornings and hangovers.

But one combination people don’t often put together - or know much about how to pair - is cake and booze. Aside from a glass of bubbly and a slice of birthday cake perhaps.

However, there are certain wines (and other alcoholic beverages) that complement particular cakes, sweet treats and baked goods better than others. And if you pair them well, you enhance both your booze and your cake, so it’s a win-win.

How should you know what to drink next time you find yourself faced with a particular cupcake though?

We spoke to wine expert Amelia Singer to find out.

“Ultimately wine is meant to be fun and there are no ‘shoulds’ when it comes to pairing,” Singer explained. “However, some pairings work better than others.

“Good pairings allow the wine and food to complement each other without overpowering or clashing the other.”

When it comes to puddings and cakes, the most important thing to remember is that the sweetness of the wine needs to be at least as equal to the dish, or else the wine will taste sour, explains Singer.

Amelia Singer

“So having Brut Champagne with a wedding cake or birthday cake is not ideal,” she says.

But don’t worry too much, as pairing sweet food with wine is more of an art than a science, as Amelia explained to lifestyle presenter Levana Wolf over sweet treats from The Hummingbird Bakery.

Try Amelia’s suggestions below and make tea-time more fun than ever before:

1. Apricot Swiss roll with Villa Maria Reserve Noble Riesling Botrytis Selection 2013, £21.05

Apricot Swiss roll

This is as traditional a pairing as you can get. The sweetness of the roll is matched by the peachy, apricot sweetness of the dessert wine.

However, as the wine is made from Riesling there is a great balance between sweetness and acidity which stops the combo from being a complete sugar overload! I also love how well the succulent; silky texture of the wine stands up to the cream.

Alternatives: Sweet Riesling from Germany, Ice wine

2. Mile High Chocolate Brownie with On Pète la Soif (sparkling Gamay), £19.00

Chocolate is tricky as it can overpower many wines. This rich, decadent cake needs an equally intense match!

This sparkling red is packed with red berry compote flavours and a little bit of residual sugar which means it can stand up to the chocolate. The bubbles and well balanced acidity however cut through the richness and pep up the palate for another bite.

Alternatives: Banyuls, Chocolate stout

​3. Coffee Cake with Nectar Pedro Ximenez Gonzalez Byass, £15.00

Coffee cake combines sweetness with a subtle sprinkling of spice. This treacly like wine has luscious dried prune and caramel flavours to jazz up the sponge but also contains nuances of nuts and warm Christmas spice.

Alternatives: Coffee, Oloroso sherry

4. Salted Caramel with Liefmans Goudenand, £3.90, specialist beer merchants

This has the sweet/savoury union going on which means you can have fun experimenting. I quite like contrasting the cake with cold, malty beer as it cuts through the sweetness and brings out the savoury salted element even more.

If you want to play up the caramel choose a sweeter tipple.

Alternatives: Dark roasted coffee, Madeira, Tawny port

5. Red Velvet with Nocturne Taittinger Rosé, £54.00

Rosé and red velvet

The red velvet is made with a lot of cocoa, cream cheese and buttermilk which makes it much less sweet and a bit more dense than traditional chocolate cakes.

The juicy red fruit in the rosé complements the bitter chocolate, whilst the refreshing acidity and bubbles cuts through the cake, creating a fun contrast. Also, the gorgeous bottle does this iconic cake justice!

Alternatives: Moscato d'asti

​6. Jam doughnut with Liefmans Fruitesse, £1.79, from Waitrose and Morrisons

Everyone loves the jammy middle but I wanted to make sure that I didn't have anything too cloying which could create overkill. This beer is an irrepressible fruit bomb - think blackcurrant wine gum flavour - which enhances the jammy centre.

However, it still has enough of a citrus core and great bubbles to contrast with the fried sweet dough.

Alternatives: Asti, Sweet Rose champagne, Milk

7. Lemon Meringue Pie with Le Soula Maceration 2015, £29.95, from Berry Brothers and Rudd or The Good Spirits Company

I wanted something that would harmonise the creamy, bitter curd, sweet meringue and satisfying thick pastry. Heads up - this was definitely the most off-piste pairing. I adore this orange wine which has the dried apricot flavours of a white wine, the structure of a red wine combined with fantastic acidity and a savoury herbal element.

Somehow this vinous conundrum brought all the different elements together – the fruit with the lemon curd, the structure of the wine with the body of the pie, the tangy savoury element of the wine added a new dimension to the meringue and overall the whole experience was a fun sweet, tangy, savoury reverie that made me appreciate both the wine and the pie in a whole new light.

Traditional alternatives: Late harvest Riesling, Citra beer, Ice wine

8. Ginger Layer Cake with Palmers Gin, £28

Gin and ginger cake

I love the clean, herbaceous freshness of ginger. To enhance the aromatic qualities as well as its natural spice, I thought that gin would be an interesting partnering.

The coriander and black pepper perfume complemented the ginger perfectly, whilst the silky, Seville orange marmalade notes of the gin enhanced the sticky sponge making it even more indulgent. Ginger cake and Gin and Tonic time anyone?

Alternatives: Late Harvest Gewürztraminer or Riesling, Tokaji