Italian · Tuscany · dessert

Castagnaccio

Castagnaccio reads nutty 6.2, richness 4.8 and sweetness 4.7 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Italian · Tuscany dessert, about 1 hr 27 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

The measured notes (of 18)

Nutty 6.2 · Richness 4.8 · Sweetness 4.7 · Herbaceous 4.0 · Salinity 3.6 · Earthy 3.1 · Fruity 2.9 · Floral 2.2 · Bitterness 2.2 · Umami 2.0 · Warm Spice 1.4 · Citrus 1.0 · Sourness 0.6

What's in it (9)

Time & effort: about 1 hr 27 min (47 min active) · effort: medium

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 69.6 kcal, 1.3 g protein, 5.2 g fat, 5.3 g carbs

Dietary: Vegan — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (7 steps)

  1. Buy chestnut flour that smells sweet and faintly smoky, and check the date: it is milled in late autumn, goes rancid within the year, and old flour makes a bitter, sour cake. There is no sugar in this recipe because there does not need to be; the flour carries all of it.
  2. Sift the chestnut flour into a bowl with the salt and whisk in the cold water in a thin stream, beating out every lump, until you have a smooth batter about as thick as double cream. Beat in the 60 ml of olive oil and the orange zest.
  3. Let the batter stand 20 minutes, then whisk again; chestnut flour keeps absorbing water and often needs a splash more to come back to a pourable consistency.
  4. Heat the oven to 200 C. Oil a 26 to 28 cm shallow tin generously with the remaining 15 ml of oil and pour the batter in to a depth of about 1.5 cm. It must be thin; a deep castagnaccio is a stodgy one.
  5. Scatter the drained sultanas, pine nuts, walnuts and rosemary needles over the surface and give the tin a shake so some sink and some stay proud.
  6. Bake 35 to 40 minutes, until the top is matte brown, the nuts are toasted and the whole surface has crazed into a network of fine cracks. Those cracks are the sign it is done, and a castagnaccio that does not crack has been baked too low or too wet.
  7. Cool in the tin for 20 minutes and eat warm or at room temperature, cut in squares. It is dense, faintly bitter, resinous from the rosemary, and it is not a sweet cake in the modern sense; it is Apennine mountain food from the centuries when chestnuts stood in for wheat.

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Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.