by Ellen Easton

“I have said it before and I will say it again, one need not be a master chef to create delicious menus.   By simply adding a few herbs or spices to a soup, pasta or vegetable dish one can enhance store bought ingredients to prepare beautiful presentations.  For the ambitious, I hope you will enjoy my chestnut cake recipe.  However, if not inclined to start baking from scratch, try a white cake mix or pound cake mix and add in the chestnut puree”. ~ Ellen Easton

Chestnut Cake: Ginger Crème and Roasted Chestnuts

Text and Photos ©Ellen Easton –All Rights Reserved

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup, plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1-cup Domino Brownulated sugar or granulated sugar  (plus extra sugar to prepare baking pan)
• 2 cups cake flour, sifted
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2-cup milk, room temperature
• 1-teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 Tablespoon Chestnut puree
• 4 large egg whites, room temperature

  GINGER WHIPPED CREAM:

• 1-cup heavy whipping cream
• 1 Tablespoon candied ginger
• 1-teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 or 2 cups to taste, Roasted Chestnuts, peeled, for topping

PREPARATION: Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.  Position the oven rack in the middle of oven.   Prepare a Bundt Pan or two (2) 9-inch cake pans or 2 or 3 (6-inch) teacake pans

This cake can be baked in any shape pan you desire.  Coat the bottom and sides of the pans with non-stick baking spray. I use PAM™ Baking Spray.  Dust the bottom and sides with Domino Brownulated or granulated sugar until lightly coated.

In the mixing bowl of your electric mixer, at medium speed, cream the butter.  Add a small amount of sugar at a time, and continue beating until creamy.  Add the cake flour, baking powder, milk, vanilla extract and Chestnut puree; beat until smooth.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form and cling to the bowl.  Fold the egg white meringue into the prepared batter mixture very carefully as to not break the air in the eggs.  Pour into the prepared pan/pans.

Bake for approximately 20 to 35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool.

Prepare the ginger whipped cream.  Place heavy cream, ginger and extract into a mixing bowl.  On a high-speed whip until soft peaks form. Stop and scrape down the sides.  Do not over whip or it will turn into butter.

When the cake is cool, remove from the pan/pans.   Top with the ginger whipped cream and garnish with the additional roasted chestnuts.

INGREDIENT SOURCES:

Edible Flowers and Greens:  GOURMETSWEETBOTANICALS.com

Nordic Ware Harvest Leaves Bundt Cake Pan

Domino Brownulated Sugar

Chestnut Puree

Roasted, Peeled Chestnuts

Text and Photos ©Ellen Easton –All Rights Reserved

Ellen Easton, author of Afternoon Tea~Tips, Terms and Traditions(RED WAGON PRESS), an afternoon tea authority, lifestyle and etiquette industry leader, keynote speaker and product spokesperson, is a hospitality, design, and retail consultant whose clients have included the Waldorf=Astoria, the Plaza and Bergdorf Goodman. Easton’s family traces their tea roots to the early 1800s, when ancestors first introduced tea plants from India and China to the Colony of Ceylon, thus building one of the largest and best cultivated teas estates on the island.