1kgchestnuts in shells or 450g canned Swiss or French chestnut puree
3ozsemi sweet chocolate
225g+ 2 Tbs sweet butter
¾cupvanilla sugar
1whole egg
¼cuplight rum
Instructions
For the sponge cake:
Preheat oven to 190. Add 1 tsp cold water and a pinch of salt to the egg whites. Whip egg whites until soft peak stage. Continue to beat and add the sugar, spoon by spoon until egg whites are very stiff. (A spoon should be able to stand up in the meringue if it is beaten stiffly enough.)
Gently add the flour, walnuts and another pinch of salt. Fold in, making sure you do no break the egg white foam.
Line a baking sheet 17 x 12 inches with wax paper. Butter paper lightly, sprinkle with flour and shake off excess.
Spread batter evenly on the prepared baking sheet. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 min, until firm and golden brown on top.
Cool completely with wax paper over top to keep cake from getting crusty; then cut lengthwise into 3 pieces.
For the filling:
Cook the chestnuts, shell and skin them and puree while still warm. You should have about 1 lb of puree.
Soften the chocolate in the top part of a double boiler over hot water. Beat together the butter, vanilla sugar, egg and rum until the mixture is very light and foamy.
Add the softened chocolate and the chestnut puree, and beat until thoroughly mixed.
Fill cake layers with chestnut filling and cover sides and top with more of it. Decorate with grated or shaved chocolate. Chill in refrigerator for several hours before serving. Serve thin slices, this is a very rich cake.
Note:
This cake can be round, square or oblong. It is an easy cake to make and yet quite different from the run-of-the-mill torte. The layers have the texture of a moist sponge cake. Make smaller layers and have a torte with more than 3 layers if you prefer. If you bake the dough a little longer, you will get crisper layers.