I have recently made two different chocolate cakes. These two different chocolate cakes combine additional flavours such as cinnamon, apple, or plum, chestnut. Interestingly both have dark rum.
One is a rich dense flourless chocolate cake with flavours of chestnuts and prunes and dark rum, the other one is a light chocolate mousse cinnamon, apple and dark rum dessert.
Gateau Mozart
This is a recipe from Pierre Hermé “Le Larousse du Chocolat“. Pierre Hermé is a famous french pastry chef, most famous for his macarons. His cookbook Le Larousse du Chocolat gathers good chocolate recipes across France and some of Pierre Hermé as well.
I had not done the Gateau Mozart for some time (recipe HERE). Imagine three very thin disks of sweet shortcrust pastry with a subtle cinnamon flavour alternating with a light chocolate mousse which contains apples cooked in butter, a pinch of cinnamon and have been flambé !
Flourless chestnut, chocolate and rum cake
I found this recipe a while ago in the Delicious Magazine. I had cut out the recipe and placed in my cookbooks. This recipe intrigued me because of the combination of chestnut and prune and rum. With chestnut puree, you retain a lot of moisture and the flavour is undeniable. Years ago, I made up a chestnut steamed pudding. It is such a nice dessert. My curiosity was picked.
This chestnut raspberry tiramisu is born from having chestnut, raspberries and raspberry coulis and mascarpone. It is not strictly speaking a tiramisu, but as I was looking through an Italian cookbook, it seems that desserts made out of mascarpone are called tiramisu, hence the name.
The previous day or in the first part of the morning, you need to prepare the pastry dough and the jellified coulis.
I used a pull apart cake tin and silicone (for the jelly) of 19 cm diameter.
Ingredients:
Pastry disk:
- 60 g soft butter
- 15 g icing sugar
- 15 g almond meal
- 1 teaspoon of raspberry liquor
- 70 g flour
- 1/3 teaspoon baking powder
You will have just enough for the disk.
Raspberry coulis:
- 500 mL of coulis passed through a sieve (i.e. close to 750 mL not sieved)
- 3 1/2 leaves of gold strength gelatine ( use 3 leaves for 500 mL as a reference)
Chestnut fill/mousse
- 250 g chestnut puree, unsweetened (if it is already sweetened, remove the sugar syrup below)
- 1/2 cup sugar syrup
- 400 g mascarpone
- about 75-100 g broken down frozen (leave them frozen) raspberries
- 90 g softened (not melted!!!) butter
- Gelatine (here we don’t need as much as if fully liquid), 4 leaves. Now, you may need to adapt this quantity, I did not put any in mine relying on the butter and mascarpone, but has to use the freezer to make it just solid enough even so, it has no holding when it starts to unfreeze, this is why I advise adding gelatine.
Method:
- For the short crust pastry, mix all ingredients together, make sure it is well mixed without overworking the dough thought. Wrap in cell film an rest for a while (3-4 hours or overnight) in the fridge. Heat up oven to 170°C. Roll the dough quite thin (3 mm) over a sheet of baking paper, use the bottom part of the round tin to cut out the circle base, trim excesses. Place that sheet of baking paper and circle of raw dough. on a baking sheet and with a fork make small holes all over. Bake it to a beautiful golden colour. Remove from the oven, transfer on a cooling rack by sliding the baking paper.
- For the soft raspberry jelly: place leaves of gelatine in cold water. Warm up the coulis, remove from the heat. Drain the gelatine from the water and mix with the coulis with a whisk until fully dissolved. Using the silicone mould (you can use any other mould of similar size, it is easier if a bit smaller than larger), line with wrap film (use butter to help it stick to the tin walls. Pour the coulis and place the whole thing in the fridge overnight or for a few hours.
- Chestnut mousse : to prepare just before assembling. Place leaves of gelatine in cold water. Warm up sugar syrup. Drain the gelatine from the water and mix with sugar syrup until dissolved. Place with chestnut puree, soft butter and mascarpone. Mix well. Add the raspberry pieces.
- Construction time: 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!
Allow to set for 4 hours.Check 1.5 hour before serving, if not set yet, you may want to place it in the freezer for a bit.
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!
This chestnut soup comes directly from my kitchen bench! The hero of the dish is the chestnut. I am giving the recipe as I made it. You may choose to omit the potato, I don’t think it is necessary.
Ingredients:
- 1 kg fresh chestnuts whole
- 1 parsnip
- 1 medium potato
- 2 pears
- 1 cube good quality chicken stock
- 1 small onion
- Salt
Method:
- To peel the chestnuts, incise the chestnuts on one side, place in a saucepan in cold water. Brig to the boil. Remove from the fire and peel both skins which should remove quite easily.
- Cut onion finely, in a large pot, melt about one teaspoon of butter and slowly melt the onion in it (it takes 5-10 minutes). Toss regularly.
- In the meanwhile, peel the vegetables and peel and core the pears.
- Add to the pot, the vegetables, pears, chestnuts, stock cube, salt and add water to cover well.
- Cook until the vegetables are done.
- Remove a few whole chestnuts or large pieces to use for plating (it add a little crunch).
- Blend the rest. You may have to add some water if your chestnut soup is too thick.
Chestnut season is here! Most of you are likely to have memories of hot chestnuts booked on a cold days in the ashes of the fireplace. It brings you back to your childhood, doesn’t it?
Parisians may argue, you can get a cone of roasted warm chestnuts in winter at street corners for a couple Euros. I remember that from my student years, although the currency was not yet the Euro!
Today, most of us don’t have a fireplace, but you can still eat those chestnuts! Use a sharp knife to incise slightly through the skin if the chestnut (this is to prevent them having a little tantrum while cooking). Be careful not to cut yourself. Place the chestnuts on a baking sheet, little tin and in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. Insert a pointy knife in one of them to check for doneness. Peel the exterior and interior skins and enjoy!
What else can you use chestnuts for? Here are a few ideas:
- Add on the sides of a lamb roast or roasted chicken. You will need to incise them as explained above, parboil them for a couple minutes and peel them. The boiling will help removing the skins. Make sure there is some juice in your roasting pan or they will become dry.
- Make chestnut puree (water based or milk based). As above incise, boil a couple minutes then remove the skins. Then cook in either water or a mix of water and milk on low heat until crumbly and coked through. Puree. Add sugar if you wish (it depends what you want to do with the puree). Keep in the fridge or freezer. There are a number of recipes with chestnut puree, here is mine for a chestnut pudding. It is light and very delicate, beautiful!
