Chestnut and almond tart “Lucrecia”

Compañeiros de la cocina, today I present you a chestnut cake lighter than last week. I have named it after my grandmother because it was one of the birthday cakes we have prepared for her, my cousin Patricia presented a cake with 3 chocolates and my sister Nuria a tiramisu.

We are a family of larpeiros / as (sweet tooth), my aunt Anita says that it is the turn of the new generations to cook. Three cakes for thirteen diners … hehe, and the main course was Galician stew (my next recipe). The food was very important but the best was my grandmother Lucrecia’s 87 years old.

This weekend I have verified that Galicia is full of chestnuts, wherever you look, from the village souto to the roasted chestnut stalls in the corners of the city. Do not hesitate to make a recipe with this seasonal fruit. I am waiting for the first dry chestnuts or pilongas to cook with them throughout the year.

For the biscuit and almond base

1. Melt the butter (use the microwave, it is faster, on low temperature about 2 minutes). With the mincer we crush the cookies (if you did not have, in a kitchen cloth we toss the 25 cookies and wrap them and then mash them with a tablespoon or something heavy, it is not so fine but it serves the same) and we add the melted butter on top.
2. We also crush the almonds and sift them, leaving on the one hand a kind of flour and in the strainer the pieces of chopped almonds. The flour is added to step 1 and we put everything together by hand. We reserve the chopped almonds for the cream.
3. We add a tablespoon of rum.
4. We take the cookie mixture and distribute it on the base of a large removable mold (in this case it was 22 cm). Press against the bottom with the help of a spoon or with your fingers and put in the oven for about 5 minutes at about 190º so that it hardens and the excess liquid evaporates a little.
5. We remove the mold and let cool to fill with the chestnut and almond cream.

Preparation of cream or chestnut puree:

In the previous chestnut cake that I presented to you last week I explained how to prepare chestnut flour, in this case what we are going to use are the pieces of chestnut from step 3. This is how I prepare chestnut puree, its preparation is very simple, once done we can use it for more desserts or freeze it.

1. The first thing is to roast the chestnuts in the oven, for this it is very important that we make a small cut so that when they are roasting they do not explode in the oven.
2. Once roasted, peel them and leave them shelled to cool (such as photo 2)
3. For the crushing process it is best to break them with the help of your hands in the bowl of the crusher and at a fast speed we let it stay as in the photo 3.
4. The next step is to pass these chopped chestnuts through a strainer and sift with it until we have a flour similar to the one in photo 4. This flour is the one that will give that flavor so tasty to the cake.
5. To prepare the puree, all we need to do is put the chopped chestnuts (photo 3) in a saucepan with milk and boil over low heat with a pinch of salt until soft. I have also added an envelope of vanilla sugar, stirring with a wooden spoon and then beat until we have a consistent cream with a texture similar to the mash.

Preparation of the chestnut and almond tart:

1. In a bowl we put the eggs and sugar. Beat until smooth, creamy and not too frothy.
2. We put the cream to heat in a saucepan over medium heat. When it is hot (without boiling, just hot) we add the chestnut puree. We leave over low heat to bring everything together helping us with a wooden spoon or some rods.
3. We turn off the heat and set the mixture aside. Add the egg and sugar mixture, stir well without beating and let stand off the heat. We introduce the biscuits of soletilla and crush with a fork, beat everything with the mixer until there is a thick cream.
4. We add to the mixture the pieces of chopped almond that we reserved previously.
5. The next step is to pour on the base of cookies (it has to be cold if it does not rise) all the mixture that we have reserved and we introduce it in the oven preheated to 190º degrees between 45-50 minutes (as I mentioned in some other recipe, everything depends on the oven, always look with a fork that stays dry).
6. When the cake takes about 15 minutes in the oven we decorate with the peeled and roasted chestnuts (in my case I bought a bag that costs 1 euro from the Casa Pons brand in Mercadona, it brings about 100 gr).
7. The last 5 minutes we gratin it so that it is left with a toasted surface.
8. We remove from the oven and let cool in the fridge for a few hours.
9. We prepare a light syrup with sugar and a little water. We paint the surface with a silicone brush to give it that shiny touch. This way you will get a professional and sweet finish.
10. Unmold and take advantage.

Thanks companions of the kitchen! Another chestnut tart, I’ve run out of supplies so for now I don’t think I’ll make any more chestnut recipes.