Castagnaccio

Name: Castagnaccio (Chestnut flour cake)
Yield: Makes one 24 cm (9½ in) flat cake
Cuisine: Italian
Ingredients: 2 sprigs of rosemary, leaves stripped off stalk; butter for greasing; breadcrumbs for lining the cake tin; 80 g (3 oz) sultanas; 400 g (14 oz) chestnut flour; 80 g (⅔ cup) shelled walnuts, broken up into pieces; about 450 ml (16 fl oz) water; 8 tablespoons olive oil; 80 g (½ cup) pine nuts

Chestnut flour cake

Preparation info

Makes
one
24 cm flat cake

Difficulty
Medium

Appears in

Twelve

By Tessa Kiros

Published 2003

About

Originally, this cake was made in December once the November chestnuts had been dried and made into flour. Nowadays, chestnut flour and this rather unusual cake are both sold in November. As with all their traditional goods, the local people love this cake which they have grown up with.

Ingredients

80 g (3 oz) sultanas
400 g (14

Europe
Italy
Cake
Mediterranean
Tuscany
Vegetarian
November

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F/Gas 6). Soak the sultanas in a little warm water to soften them. Put the chestnut flour into a bowl with 4 tablespoons of the olive oil, a pinch of salt and the water. Mix in with a wooden spoon to make a smooth and fairly liquid batter.

Drain o