Chocolate chestnut torte

My weekend was pretty low key. Yesterday Matt had a potluck party for his birthday, so I decided to make a chocolate chestnut torte. As a child, this is the cake that I always requested my mom make for my birthday. It wasn’t quite as good as what I remember (I feel like I tend to build certain foods up in my mind if I haven’t had them in a long time), but it was still pretty darn good.

We ended up having about 20 people over to the house and playing the board game Balderdash and the card game Whist, which is similar to Spades. None of us were really paying attention to the time, so the party ended up going until 3 am with the start of Daylight Savings Time. One might say a raging late night party (with board games, haha)?

Cake Ingredients

• 12 oz (3/4 pound) roasted chestnuts (vacuum packed or canned and drained)
• 10 oz dark chocolate (I used a Trader Joe’s Pound Plus bar)
• 8 tbsp (1 stick) butter
• ¼ cup dark rum
• 6 eggs
• ¼ tsp salt
• ½ cup sugar

Topping Ingredients

• 1 cup heavy cream
• 8 oz (1 cup) dark chocolate
•  1/2 cup roasted slivered almonds

Cake Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9 inch cake pan.
2. Separate the eggs, 6 whites into a large mixing bowl and 6 yolks into a small bowl.
3. Melt the dark chocolate and butter in a double boiler.
4. In a food processor, finely grind the roasted chestnuts. Add the melt dark chocolate/butter mixture and rum and pulse until mixed. While the food processor is on, add egg yolks one at a time until combined.
5. Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites and salt until firm/fluffy. Slowly add in the sugar and mix until stiff peaks form.
6. Fold the egg white mixture into the chocolate mixture until just combined. Pour into the greased cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes.

Decorating Instructions

1. In a small sauce pan, heat the heavy cream and dark chocolate on low heat. Stir until thick and combined. Cool until luke warm and the frost the cake (works well if the cake is on a wire rack).
2. Garnish the sides of the cake with roasted slivered almonds.

I thought this photo was pretty funny. The cake is like a mirror and you can see my lovely self portrait in the frosting.