Chocolate Chestnut Cake Recipe. GF Friendly

Chocolate Chestnut Cake

What’s not to love? My favorite flavors are all grouped in one great treat: Chocolate, chestnuts, coconut! This cake is nice and rich and luxurious, yes, but  a small serving is all you need.

I am constantly asked how I go about developing all my recipes. I know it is hard to make a non-food professional visualize all the steps involved. But let me still name one no-brainer vital initial step, which I think my fellow food professionals will second readily:

Flavor Matching

Yes. It all starts with good flavor matching. I start with that, always, and confidently run with it.
That’s how I ended with this incredible chocolate chestnut cake. I played with this cake endlessly before I arrived at the perfect formula. I started with a winning and promising flavor combo, so how could I miss? A snap to make, too!

Gluten-Free Chocolate Chestnut Cake

That will be perfect too. You have several good choices of great quality gluten-free flour mixes to choose from on the market. King Arthur, Full’n’Free, etc: All great choices. And of course you can always make your own GF mix. I am not fond of potato starch in the mix, so I always look for a mix without it.
Here I would recommend, a wider and lower mold so the batter bakes evenly without the added no-rising challenge.

Chestnuts got super easy to use!

Ever since some inspired manufacturer, bless his heart, recently thought of doing all the pesky tasks involved in peeling and roasting chestnuts, and selling vacuum-packed chestnuts, there’s nothing I don’t do with them, any time of the year: I buy them by the case and watch them disappear!
There’s nothing I don’t do with these vacuum-packed chestnuts, from soup to dessert.

Coconut Cream

No more refrigerating the can of coconut milk, skimming the dense top and leaving the more liquid “milk” behind: coconut cream is now widely available!

Ingredients

Cake

• 1 15-ounce can coconut cream
• 2 cups vacuum-packed roasted chestnuts (about 10 ounces total)
• ½ cup pure cocoa powder
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• ¼ cup rum (liquor store)
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

• 2 cups flour (all purpose, whole wheat pastry, spelt or Gluten-Free)

Icing

• 1 cup bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• 3 tablespoons plant milk

Instructions