Chestnut cake San Martiño

How to make “San Martiño” chestnut cake.

The fall is my favorite season of the year, the magnificent seasonal products, and especially for one of my weaknesses, my land chestnut.

Around it one of the most important festivals of Ourense is celebrated: the Magostos , where this product so characteristic of Galicia is exalted.  

The great day of these festivities is November 11 , the day of San Martiño , the patron saint of the city of Ourense .

It is a gastronomic celebration in which typical products of this autumn season are tasted: chorizos, churrasco, wine and chestnuts. And all well accompanied by family, friends and the traditional bonfires, where all these delicacies are roasted.

From 15/20 days before San Martiño, the majority of pastry shops in the city prepare this chestnut cake , typical of these festive dates.

Some even offer it during the entire season of the chestnut , to take advantage of the great pull it has. It is a dessert that combines chestnut and almond, resulting in a soft tart, with a puffed texture and a delicious flavor.

This unconditional love of mine for the chestnut can be felt on the blog, where you will find a lot of recipes with it, such as the chestnut cake with chocolate , the cheese cake and chestnut cream or the chestnut bica .

I leave you with this traditional chestnut cake, with a puffed texture, but dense and with an intense flavor of nuts and chestnuts.

Preparation of chestnuts. Chestnut cream

1. Before going to work, we remove the butter from the fridge, because we are going to need it to be soft for the recipe, with an “ointment” texture.   
2. We make a small cut to the chestnuts, to avoid risks of “exploiting” us when cooking them. We blanch them 5 minutes in boiling water. We remove from the water and let them cool.
3. As soon as we can reach out to them without burning, let’s peel them off.
4. With the hand or with the help of a knife, we can remove the shell and skin without complications. Once ready, we chop them into quarters.
5. Pour the milk into a saucepan, heat and add the chopped chestnuts.
6. We are going to cook them for 15 minutes, over medium / low heat. Then we crush with the mixer, until we obtain a smooth and homogeneous cream. We reserve.
7. We separate the yolks from the whites. These we keep in the fridge, so that they are then cold and easier to assemble.
8. In a bowl, add the butter (ointment texture), 170 g. sugar and egg yolks.
9. We beat well, so that it turns out a homogeneous cream. We can give it a touch of a mixer if we see that there are lumps or a cream is enough.
10. Now add the chestnut cream , mix again. We also give it a touch of a mixer, to leave the cream with a better texture.

Preparation of the cream of the chestnut cake

1. At this time, we preheat the oven, 10 minutes at 180º C.
2. In a large bowl, pour and mix the dry ingredients: the chopped almond, the wheat flour and the yeast.
3. Add the sweet cream, and continue mixing little by little, until everything is well integrated.
4. Take the egg whites out of the fridge. We add 30 g. of sugar and we begin to assemble them with the electric rods, at high speed.
5. In a couple of minutes we will have them ready. We add them to the cream, mixing little by little and with enveloping movements.
6. Spread the mold with a little butter. We pour the cream of the cake.

Baking and final presentation of the San Martiño chestnut cake

1. We bake about 30/35 minutes at 180º C. I put this time interval because each oven is a world. Check with a skewer and if it comes out clean, the cake is ready.
2. We remove from the oven and let cool. We decorate with glass sugar, which you can distribute with the help of a strainer.
3. Finally, to give our cake a touch of Ourense, we heat the chocolate until it is liquid.
4. We pass it to a bottle or a pastry bag. With a little skill and without haste, we wrote the letters “San Martiño” .

And we would already have our delicious chestnut cake ready, I hope you like it as much as I do. A great seasonal and year-round sweet that goes great with a mid afternoon tea or coffee.

Here you have a step by step in photos where I show how to prepare this recipe for chestnut tart San Martiño . Do not miss any detail so that they come out of you delicious.

Tips for a yummy chestnut pie

• The traditional recipe for this cake is prepared with fresh chestnuts, but I understand that it is not always possible to find them, even if we are in season.
• But there is no problem, because there are other alternatives. In large areas it is possible to find them frozen, already peeled and cooked, or buy chestnut pilongas and hydrate them at home the day before.
• We could also use chestnut cream already made. In gourmet establishments and online stores it is easy to find it. If we use it directly, in addition to saving you work, you can make this cake at any time of year.
• If you buy fresh chestnuts, look for them of good quality and well “healthy”. Pay attention that they have shiny skin and are hard to the touch. Once at home, if you are not going to use them at the moment, keep them in a cool and dry place.
• For the final decoration, if you are not very clever with the chocolate theme, there are some tubes of liquid chocolate on the market already prepared to decorate.
• And if you get overwhelmed with this topic, well, nothing happens if it doesn’t have chocolate letters. With the touch of the icing sugar there is already a delicious touch.