This Italian chestnut cake is a result of my trip to Corsica. If you are an avid cook and traveler, I am sure you know what it feels like to buy an “exotic” ingredient from a place you visited and then get home without knowing what to do with it. This is what happened when I went to this divine island on the Southern coast of France and bought chestnut flour. I mean we got a lot of delicious things there, from local honey to dried wild boar salami, and it was all consumed pretty fast. But chestnut flour, well, I didn’t know what to do with it.
So when I clearing out the pantry this weekend and stumbled upon, I decided to make this wonderful cake inspired by an Italian friend’s mom’s recipe. It is the perfect coffee or breakfast cake: moist, not too sweet, reasonably healthy and bonus: gluten-free. It is right up there with my favorite coffee cake on a cold day with a big mug of tea or coffee.
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup chestnut flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1/3 cup coconut sugar
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp powdered ginger
- 1/4 tsp cloves
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 eggs
- 3 tbsp honey
- 1 cup milk (plant-based or regular)
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 3/4 cup raisins (you can sub this for cranberries, chopped up apricot, figs or other dried fruit)
- 1/2 cup pine nuts (you could also sub these I guess with pecans or walnuts but I prefer pine nuts)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175C
- In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, sugar, spices and salt)
- In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs, add milk, honey, vanilla and oil
- Pour the liquid ingredients into the flour mixture until just combined
- Add raisins and nuts into the batter
- Line an 8 or 9 inch round baking pan with parchment paper and pour the batter into it
- Bake in oven for around 40 minutes
- Take out and let cool on a rack until ready to serve