Fear not dear reader for I have returned, I shall not furnish you with details as to my unexplained absences because frankly finding excuses to cover up the fact that I’ve been lazy will become tedious for us both. I suggest you just ignore them and we both hope for the best.
Getting cold lately isn’t it, not as quickly as it should be sure, I mean just last night I heard crickets at sunset, what that’s about I don’t know but I was driving through somewhere near Bulleen the other day and it looked fairly autumnal and wandering through the market the other day I found that Chestnuts seem to be in season. I’ve cooked very little with chestnuts, made a dessert once with chestnut flour and I think I was served some roasted chestnuts with duck in a restaurant once. Certainly hope they were chestnuts, what ever they were the imagery outshone the taste but then again I’m not all that nuts about nuts. I think I like the idea of chestnuts more than the reality, they look so inviting when they sell them in winter in those little oven things on street corners, always makes me think of running home with the last of my Christmas shopping a couple of days before Christmas in London sometime in the late 1890’s to sip sherry by an open fire or sit benevolently in the kitchen whilst cook prepares a Yule log out of chocolate and marzipan for the Christmas table. You understand I’ve never done any of those things of course; I’ve done far too much hard living to still be alive at 130.
You get my point though, I think chestnuts I think winter, I think winter I think cozy, I think cozy I make something with chocolate. Originally this story didn’t start with chestnuts or chocolate. It began as all good riddles do, with an egg.
Duck egg to be exact, had to get eggs to feed a starving artist and I saw some duck eggs there all nestled in their little wicker basket and decided to try some. I don’t eat eggs on their own per se so I knew that I would end up putting them into a cake of some kind and that’s what I’ve heard they’re particularly good for. Something to do with the consistency of the whites making for a lighter texture. So I got four of them, huge things, looked like ostriches laid them. Kept on with my travels and made the chestnut discovery, wallowed in the whole global warming thing and like any decent housewife decided to bake it a cake. Now I may be a little crazy, a little prone to doing things the hard way, but there was no way in hell I was roasting and grinding my own chestnuts to make a cake and for some reason no where I looked in the market had Chestnut puree, I even went to Safeway and for a heartless corporate chain they sometimes carry some odd little items but nothing.
No matter, I know I can always turn to the perennially hip, Piedimontes. I can’t tell you how much I hate going there, it mightn’t be cool to admit but good god I’d rather poke out my eyes sometimes than go to Piedimontes. They always put things in weird places and I have to run around looking for them and I’ve embarrassed myself too may times there. Last week I knocked over a big stack of Italian biscuits trying to pick up a shopping basket one handed (it might not sound difficult but I’m special) and then one time I left a trail of sugar after me while I was wandering around looking for stuff because the packet of sugar I had in my basket had a hole in the paper. And I’ve had weird guys try to pick me up there, one with exceptionally bad breath springs to memory and it took me three aisles to shake him, no means no trench mouth. And people don’t get out of your way, they have long elaborate discussions about which brand of toilet tissue to buy and about whether they can find the biodynamic brand of Rooibos tea that they tried at their last Pilates class. This is all very small of me I know but it bugs me, I want to get in and out of there as fast as humanly possible and I never achieve that goal because at every step of the way some Birkenstock clad hipster is gaping open mouthed at goats’ cheese.
But if mama needs her chestnut puree then that’s what she’s got to do.
So I head over there on my way home on a Saturday after heading out on a tram and two buses to see someone in Doncaster coming all the way back in the first decent down pour of rain we’ve had in what seems like an eternity, soaked to the point that I squelched when I walked but too tired to care. Managed to remain upright, not crash into any inanimate objects around me or create a trail of anything and I found the prettiest can of Chestnut puree I could have hoped for. It’s that I’ve got the photo of this time coz cake is cake you all know what one looks like. It may be gullible but sometimes I like the packaging, it makes sense to make the packaging pretty, you’re more likely to keep it that way. Alright, I’m a sucker for marketing but its clear I’m going to try and justify this anyway I can.
All the chestnut recipes I’d found didn’t do what I was looking for, there was one for a chestnut rosemary and pine nut cake which looked kinda like foodies went on a bucks night food binge and regurgitated their rustic Tuscan cuisine. And some kind of chocolate refrigerator cake which just looked like fancy fudge.
So I made one up, you know how everyone tells you that you have to be really careful with cakes so that things come out right and if you’re even slightly off then the sky will fall, its bollocks, anything that fails you can pass off as a mud cake. Just tell them it’s a dense chocolate gateau and they’ll never know the difference………….
So I made a dense chocolate and chestnut gateau and iced it with a light chocolate whipped cream. The duck eggs seemed to make it just that touch richer and the Chestnut puree make for a nice slightly caramelized texture to the surface of the cake, kind of satisfyingly chewy.
Chocolate Chestnut Gateau.
Preheat your oven to 170 C. Melt 150 g of chocolate with 150 g of butter in a double boiler over a low heat. Beat two duck eggs with 1 cup of caster sugar til pale and fluffy then add I can roughly 425g of chestnut puree, get the pretty can you can use it for something later, I’m still trying to figure out what to do with mine, suggestions? (Behave)
Continue whisking eggs and sugar and Chestnuts for a minute or two before adding ¾ of a cup of good quality cocoa and 1 ¾ cups of plain flour. Add your melted chocolate and butter and pour into a 20cm greased and lined tin. Bake for approximately 1 hour until the surface is firm and the cake appears set; insert a skewer if you like to be sure about these things. Allow to cool before topping with whatever you like, whipped cream is what I used that I flavored with cocoa and icing sugar but you can try anything you like.
It’s lovely particularly on the first day and can be reheated subsequently if you haven’t iced it to make a nice little pudding.
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