Recipe for Chocolate, Chestnut, Almond and Prune Cake
This recipe for Chocolate, Chestnut, Almond & Prune Cake came about as a solution to finding a use for my left over cooked and peeled chestnuts and prunes. Sourced from the internet it was originally posted by Rachel Roddy of the Guardian newspaper in December 2019.
She said:
Plums are all very well, but ageing suits them. Their youthful bounce, wrinkled into tricky sweetness with spicy undercurrents: prunes are my favourite aunt of Christmas food, eaten from a fancy tin, soaked, stuffed or made into this cake – which came about by mistake. The recipe I intended to follow does not include butter, but habit got the better of me and, before I knew it, 250g of the stuff was melting into a dark pool with the chocolate.
It was an excellent mistake, turning a good cake into an exuberantly good one: dense, rich and thick – especially if you leave it until the next day, when it cuts into an almost fudge-like, velvet slice. Eat with a glass of port and a favourite aunt.
Due to a shortage of chocolate in my larder I reduced all of the ingredients by 1/4 so the following information is based on my quantities, not Rachel’s.
Ingredients for the Chocolate, Chestnut, Almond & Prune Cake
- 108g cooked and peeled chestnuts
- 72g whole blanched almonds
- 72g pitted prunes
- 180ml whole milk
- 180g butter, diced
- 180g dark chocolate, broken into smallish pieces
- 3 eggs
- 90g caster sugar
- A small pinch of salt
Method to make the Chocolate, Chestnut, Almond & Prune Cake
- Put the chestnuts, almonds, prunes and milk into a small pan over a low heat, until the milk is almost, but not quite, boiling.
- Take off the heat and leave to stand for 10 minutes, then blend to a soft, rough paste in a food processor.
- In a bowl, over a pan of simmering water, melt the butter and chocolate and then leave to stand for 5 minutes.
- Heat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan)/gas 4.
- Add the chestnut puree to the chocolate mixture.
- In another bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and salt until soft and fluffy, then add to the mixture and stir vigorously.
- Scrape into a 20cm tin lined with greaseproof paper, and bake in the middle of the oven for 25 minutes, until set but just a little wobbly at the centre.
- The cake will be soft and mousse-like inside, so leave to cool completely (at least an hour, but ideally three to overnight) before removing from the tin.
My Opinion
In my opinion this was the perfect way to use up most of the spare chestnuts and prunes that I had left over from my Christmas Merguez Roasted Roots With Prunes & Chestnuts recipe. The only ingredient I had to buy was the blanched almonds as I had everything else in my larder. I don’t think reducing the overall quantities was detrimental and I would thoroughly recommend this sweet treat which is full of fruit and fibre. The original recipe didn’t mention storage but I felt it important to keep it refrigerated once it had cooled and been removed from the tin.
Do you have a favourite chestnut and prune recipe? If so, please share it as a comment.
Enjoy!
Useful Links
Below you will find some useful links which are relevant to this article.
