Christmas Loaf Cake

Happy Monday everyone! I'm ecstatic for a number of reasons. First and foremost, Christmas is around the corner and I still get as excited as a kid waiting for Santa. I'm also happy because I have an amazing recipe to share with you today. This year I’ve ventured to do a more difficult one and I’m really happy I took the plunge because it’s the best one I’ve done so far! It's a mouth-watering chestnut and chocolate cake. Yes, I know we made a chestnut cake in October but here we are taking it to the next level. If you are looking for a Christmas desert keep scrolling down...

Ingredients

Chestnut puree

500 gr of chestnuts, some milk, 4 tablespoons of sugar

Sponge cake

4 eggs

260 gr brown sugar

120 ml cream

100 gr butter

230 gr flour

chestnut puree

6 gr of yeast

3 tablespoons of powder cocoa

100gr of chocolate (you can use milk chocolate or regular one. I’ve used a bar of 70% cocoa)

1 teaspoon of cinnamon

½ teaspoon ginger

½ teaspoon nutmeg

Icing

100 gr of icing sugar

1 teaspoon of water

 The first thing is to make the chestnut puree. Cut an "x" on each chestnut and bake them in the oven for 10 minutes. Peel the chestnuts. Put the chestnuts in a pot with a bit of water and boil them for 20 minutes. After letting them cool down add a bit of milk and the sugar. Then make them puree using a blender.

Next step is making the cake. Preheat oven at 200ºC. Mix the eggs and the sugar in a bowl, and then add the cream. Mix yeast, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and add to the mixture. Then add melted butter and finally add the chestnut puree. Mix well.

Pour half of the mixture in the mold. Add the powder cocoa to the other half and mix well.  Pour the rest of the mixture on the center of the mold so that the chocolate part sinks in the middle of the cake.

Cut chocolate in dice and sprinkle on top of the cake. The chunks of chocolate will be crunchy and delicious when you serve the cake.

Put in the oven at 200ºC for 10 minutes. Then, open the oven and cut the center of the cake, make it a thick line. With this cut the cake will grow taller in the center rather than the sides making more spectacular and professional looking. Lower temperature at 160ºC and bake for 40 minutes. Check that it’s cooked by inserting a toothpick in the center of the cake. Your cake is ready if it comes out either clean or with only a few crumbs clinging to it. Once out of the oven let it cool for 5 min before taking it out of mold. Let it cool completely.

For the icing, mix the sugar, cream and water in a bowl. When the mixture is ready, pour it on top of the cake. Put it in the fridge to solidify. Decorate as you wish. I used Spanish sweet candied fruit which is very popular here at this time of the year.

Serves 10

I hope this is useful inspiration for you. If you decide to make this yummy loaf cake let me know by sending me a pic or tagging me @crisgomez85 on social networks.

Cristina xo