Now it's official: The Christmas season has begun! This also means that from now until January 1st, you can eat properly and well without feeling guilty. We're kicking off this culinary marathon with a truly delicious cake that will put you in the festive Christmas spirit in no time.
This chestnut cognac cake features sweet chestnut cream, crunchy Grenoble walnuts, freshly grated lemon zest, melt-in-the-mouth French dark chocolate, and a hint of cognac. A gluten-free treat that will be a real hit. So, enough of the teasing, here's the fantastic recipe:
Ingredients:
- 720 g chestnut cream
- 80 g dark chocolate
- 200 g Grenoble walnuts
- 125g soft, salted butter
- 80 g sugar
- 4 large eggs
- 1 grated lemon peel
- 3 tbsp cognac
For decoration:
- 200 g white chocolate coating
- 6 cranberries
- 4-8 leaves of fresh mint
- 2-3 walnuts
1. We start by mixing the walnuts, chocolate and chestnut cream thoroughly.
2. Next, add the finely chopped butter, sugar, and eggs. Beat the resulting mixture with a mixer until the butter is blended with the remaining ingredients.
3. The cake mixture is now poured into a greased springform pan lined with baking paper and then baked in a preheated oven at 180 °C.
4. After baking, the cake should cool for about 1 hour and the edge should be carefully separated from the springform pan with a knife.
5. Now the cake is ready for the icing and decoration. To do this, melt the chocolate coating in a water bath and carefully spread it over the entire cake, starting in the center and using a knife. The chocolate then needs to cool for another hour .
6. Finally, we scatter the mint, cranberries, and walnuts on the cake, as shown in the photo. Et voilà!
We wish you b on appétit
As a wine accompaniment, we recommend a juicy, fruity, dry Espumante from northern Portugal, from the Minho region: the Espumante Bruto made from 100% Alvarinho from the Domaine "Soalheiro" (sunny place in Portuguese) is a lovely, fresh and refreshing counterbalance to the sweet heaviness of the cake.
The bottle is available for €17.90, the carton of 6 for €100.00.
Click here for the print-friendly PDF version .
Photos and text by Christian Kuhn // www.image-01.com
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The original recipe comes from the food blog https://valentinas-kochbuch.de/ . We've adapted it slightly for our purposes.
