Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings

Last month for Secret Recipe Club, Kim of Everyday Mom cooked from my blog and using my  Nutella No Bake Cookies recipe she turned my cookies into a crust and created a lovely and delicious looking Nutella Cheesecake.  Well now it’s my turn to work with one of her recipes as this month I was assigned Kim’s blog for The Secret Recipe Club.  I enjoyed reading through all of Kim’s blog, seeing her especially lovely cake creations and also seeing her children cooking with her in the kitchen because if you’ve read this blog at all, you know I love cooking with my Maisie.  As always it was difficult to pick just one recipe but in the end I decided to make one of Eammon’s favorite foods, Buffalo Chicken Wings.  When Kim made her Buffalo wings she said that it was a flop, that the sauce didn’t stick and that the wings lacked flavor.  She asked for suggestions on why hers flopped so I decided to take on the challenge, determined to make it work and make some spicy and delicious Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings.

The only ingredient change I made to Kim’s recipe was to cut the amount of butter from 1/2 cup to 1 TBS.  But then I doubled the total amount of all the sauce ingredients as I decided that I was going to not only toss the wings in the hot sauce mixture once they were cooked but that I would also marinate the wings before cooking, trying to infuse some additional spicy hot goodness into them.  The other change I made was to really crank up the oven temperature from Kim’s 350F to 500F.  I have found in the past when cooking chicken wings in the oven, like my Chinese Five Spice Wings, that by cooking hot and fast I get nice crispy skin and juicy tender meat so I figured that would be the way to go. 

Wings marinating.

Ready for the oven.

Wings fresh from the oven.

Cooked wings tossed in more hot sauce mix.

So how did the Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings turn out?  Well the sauce stuck, the flavor was spicy hot deliciousness, the skin was crispy, the meat tender and moist…all-in-all total finger-licking spicy success!  Eammon was an especially happy guy when I served these wings so thank you Kim for inspiring me to make these delicious Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings

Baked Buffalo Chicken Wings (Adapted from here)

• 3 lbs chicken wings, cut into drumettes & flats, tips removed and discarded 
• 2 TBS. butter, very soft 
• 1 c. Franks Red Hot Sauce
• 5 tsp. Tabasco sauce
• 3 TBS. dark chili powder 

Pre-heat oven to 500F.

In a large bowl whisk together the softened butter, hot sauce, Tabasco & chili powder until well blended.  Divide the sauce equally between two large bowls and set one aside.   Add the wing pieces to one bowl and toss to coat until all the wing pieces are coated.  Cover and let marinate in the refrigerator for at least one hour. Lay the wings skin side up on an aluminum foil lined baking sheet which has been sprayed with cooking spray and bake for 20-25 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through and the skin is crispy with golden charred bits.  Remove from oven and immediately add the wing pieces (but NOT all the fat and juice on the pan) to the reserved bowl of hot sauce mixture and toss well, coating all the wing pieces.  Serve immediately with Ranch or bleu cheese dressing*, carrot and/or celery sticks.

* Kim raved about her bleu cheese dressing which she made and served with her wings but because no one in this house cares for bleu cheese anything I passed on making the dressing but hop on over to Kim’s blog to find that recipe.

Enjoy!

My previous Secret Recipe Club Recipe Posts:

Fried Green Tomatoes 
Chicken Satay Noodle Salad 
Double Chocolate Mousse Cake 
Candied Popcorn
Fruit, Nut & Poppy Seed Chicken Salad 
Broiled Sushi 
Health(ier) Peanut Brittle 
Crunchy Fudgy Heart Bites 
Texas Chicken with Lime Butter 
Pork Belly Soup with Collard Greens 
Thin Mint Irish Coffee 
Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookies 
Welsh Cakes 
Nutella Crêpes 
Cilantro Lime Chicken 
Holy Guacamole 
and
Home Style Chicken Curry