Fall Tuscan Cooking Class with an old Chestnut Flour Cake: Castagnaccio!

Fall Tuscan Cooking Class Chestnut Flour Cake CASTAGNACCIO!

A few days ago they called me for a cooking class at a Resort where I go to cook very often. Yes, this is my “itinerant” job compared to that of “Dolce Vita in Tuscany” Cooking School and b&b, that’s my Brick’n Mortar place.

One of my students was celiac and therefore they decided on a menu based on risotto and as a dessert, there was this old typical Tuscan dessert called Castagnaccio.

Well, usually the Castagnaccio is a Fall Tuscan Cooking Class, but you can enjoy this cake all year long. What’s important? Having a very good chestnut flour.

Small trick: I keep mine in the freezer…so it’s always fresh!

The Castagnaccio belongs to the poor cuisine of the farmers and here everyone knows it.

Needless to say that my students were all very happy with this choice and I recommend that you try to make this dessert. It is a very particular one, a unique “not too sweet” flavor. The texture is velvety.

My fav Tuscan recipes book

I love reading and lately, I’m really passionate about old recipe books.
If you like Italian cuisine, there’s a very old book teaching you the base of Tuscan cooking, including all the bases for Italian and Tuscan pasta sauces, main courses (our secondi piatti), desserts, and cakes. The book in question is from Pellegrino Artusi: La Scienza in Cucina e l’Arte di mangiar bene, in English: Science in the Kitchen and Art of Eating well, and if you like you can buy it here on Amazon.
My granny found her daily recipes in this book and I own her own copy in my library.
It’s a “lived” book, full of writings, notes, and drawings.

This Fall Tuscan Cooking Class has all the flavor of Tuscany

Tuscan Chestnut Flour Cake, named Castagnaccio, it’s a very simple cake that we Tuscans usually make in fall, tasting it in front of the fireplace, with a glass of “Novello” (very young wine) that was never lacking during this period.
Advice: Taste your chestnut flour, if it’s sweet and fresh it’ll be a very delicious cake without adding sugar; if it’s not very sweet, you can add 1 tbsp of muscovado cane sugar for each 100gr of chestnut flour.
With this pudding, you can also make pancakes.

Castagnaccio chestnut flour cake

Fall Tuscan Cooking Class: Castagnaccio (Chestnut Flour Tuscan Cake)

INGREDIENTS

10,507 oz; 300gr Chestnut Flour
2 cups; 480ml cold Water 4 tbsp Extra Virgin Oil
4 tbsp Sugar
1 pinch salt
2 oz; 60gr raisins
2 oz; 60gr pine nuts
2 oz; 60gr walnut kernels 2 sprigs Rosemary

Pass the chestnut flour through a sieve;
then put it in a bowl and season with a pinch of salt. Once this is done, soak it with cold water, poured little by little, reducing it to a liquid gruel
Pour in a handful of whole pine nuts. Add to the mixture the chopped walnuts, raisins, and also, on the top of the pudding, a few leaves of rosemary. Take a baking tray, pour on the bottom a squeeze of oil, and spread it by hand. Pour in the mixture, no thicker than 2cm (Castagnaccio is much better when is thin).
Pour on the top a squeeze of oil and 3 or 4 rosemary sprigs

BAKE IN THE OVEN: 338°F, 170°C FOR 25 MINUTES

Pair with whipped and sweetened ricotta cheese or heavy sweetened whipped cream

castagnaccio chestnut flour cake