How to call a dessert which is no exactly what you intend to do? Lets call this one a chestnut raspberry tiramisu.
The background
I had all these chestnuts I wanted to use. The kids and I got excited and after having eaten a whole bad of them somehow, the second bag was going untouched for a while. This is a classic situation in a family, isn’t it? So I used most of them to make a chestnut puree. I had in mind to do a beautiful chestnut raspberry layered cake. I also had this great pot of mascarpone in the fridge and had been going through the cookbook “80 Authentic Italian Sweet Treats, Cakes and Desserts” by Laura Zavan.
Now, a very important factor, it is very cold in my kitchen at the moment (for those who don’t know, we have been going through renovations). It would have felt like around 5°C when I prepared the dessert wrapped in many layers.
The process….
- I created a short crust pastry, let it rest for a while in the fridge, though I could have left it on the kitchen bench considering the freezing weather this weekend. I rolled the dough quite thin (3 mm), baked it to a beautiful golden colour.
- I used a raspberry coulis I had in the freezer to create my bottom “layer”. Obviously I needed to add some gelatine. I prepared that step at the same time as the dough. My advice to you is check your volumes and don’t put too much gelatine. It was a bit too jellified to my taste.
- I wanted to obtain a chestnut mousse but using the mascarpone. I mixed 250 g of chestnut puree, initially 200 g of mascarpone, 50 g of softened butter. At this stage, I realised I had not though it through well enough and that my dessert was not going to be what I intended. I used the rest of the mascarpone (400 g total), some sugar syrup (I keep some handy in the kitchen) and 50-100 g of pieces of raspberry frozen. I was betting on the mascarpone and butter to set.
- Construction time (a bit like leggos!), the disk at the bottom, the jellified raspberry coulis over the disk, then the mascarpone-chestnut-raspberry mousse. Cell wrap on top and in the fridge!
I didn’t know if it would have set overnight but after a few hours, it had not moved and I was running out of time. I placed the dessert in the freezer where it set just on time.
Result:
In the end, it was quite good. Next time, if there is one, I would add a little gelatine to the mascarpone.
I had also prepared a backup dessert, a chocolate cake with roasted strawberries. As a result, we had plenty to chose from and a fair amount of left overs. Did you know, some desserts freeze really well? You can have a nice finish to your meal in no time!
