Delicious Chestnut Cake: A Taste of Ticino in Your Home…
Chestnut cake is a soft and mouth-watering dessert, rich in chocolate and flavored with rum. You can enjoy it at any time of the day: breakfast, snack or by adding an English sauce it will also become a perfect dessert for after dinner! A soft and rustic dough, thanks to the addition of easily prepared homemade chestnut flour and brown sugar. Have we made your mouth water? Then there will be no finer thing than going out of town, scouting out the right place, opening the urchins and harvesting the chestnuts to prepare this heart-warming dessert!
Ingredients:
Ingredients (for a 22×15 cm / 9×6 inch baking tin/pan):
- 400g (14 oz) cooked and peeled chestnuts
- 150g (1 1/4 cups) plain flour / all-purpose flour
- 3 large eggs, at room temperature
- 150g (3/4 cup) soft brown sugar / packed brown sugar
- 100g (3.5 oz) dark chocolate
- 80ml (1/3 cup) dark rum
- 30g (2 tablespoons) unsalted butter
- 16g (4 teaspoons) baking powder
- Pinch of coarse salt
For decoration:
- Unsweetened cocoa powder, to taste
- Honey, to taste
How to Prepare Delicious Chestnut Cake:
- To prepare the chestnut cake as first thing, fill a saucepan with water, season with a little coarse salt 1 and pour in the chestnuts. When it starts boiling, cover with a lid and cook for about 30-40 minutes (depends on the size of the chestnuts).
- After the time has elapsed, drain and start peeling them while still hot, taking care to remove the skin underneath as well. As you clean them, transfer them to a bowl; you should make 200 g of them.
- Let them cool. Keep a couple aside for decoration and transfer the others to a blender. Blend until you get a sort of grainy flour 8, then keep aside. Separate the yolks from the egg whites, into two bowls. In the bowl of yolks, add the brown sugar,
the whipped chestnuts, the rum and the sifted flour. - Work with electric whisk until the mixture is creamy. Gather all the mixture well with a spatula, even from the sides of the bowl. Now deal with the chocolate: break it up and put it in a saucepan along with the butter.
- Melt it all over very low heat, stirring with a wooden spoon , alternatively you can use the microwave to do this. Let the chocolate cool, then add it to the mixture and stir with a spatula.
- Whip the egg whites until stiff, then add them to the mixture, incorporating them gently and making motions from the bottom up. When you have obtained a smooth mixture,
add the sifted baking powder and stir gently again to let it absorb . Butter a 22×15 cm rectangular mold and pour the dough inside . - Bake in a static oven preheated to 180°C (350°F) in the low shelf for about 30 minutes. Always check the baking by doing the toothpick test. Take the cake out of the oven and let it cool. Dust with bitter cocoa, decorate with the chestnuts set aside earlier, brushing them with a little honey, and serve your chestnut cake.
Bon Appétit!
