from my orchid kitchen

This gluten-free dessert is a great light and moist cake made with an uncommon key ingredient - chestnut flour, with a very pleasant taste and making you want some more.

I already had the recipe for this chestnut cake saved a few years ago in my files, because at the time it was still difficult to find chestnut flour on stores. Nowadays this is no longer the case, at least in large urban centers, with sections of healthy food in supermarkets increasing in size and variety of products, and also with the increase in the number of stores that sell products for alternative diets.

What captivated me in this simple cake was not only the fact of using chestnut, an ingredient that I quite like, but also the use of cream instead of butter or oil as a source of fat on the recipe.

Here at home, everyone loved the cake, which is quite soft and slightly moist, and contrary to what you might think, the chestnut flour doesn't give the cake that flavor we find when we eat other desserts made with fresh chestnuts, but a soft flavor that contrasts very well with the lemon. Despite everything, anyone who wants can make this cake without adding the lemon zest and replacing it with vanilla.

The Ingredients

• Eggs
• Chestnut flour - this flour belongs to the group of alternative flours to serve in gluten-free diets, and basically results from finely ground dry nuts. There are many traditional recipes of Italian origin that use this flour, not only in sweet recipes but also in some savory and even bread.
• Baking powder - in addition to the whipped egg whites, baking powder is used to make this cake even fluffier.
• Sugar - the amount present allows it to be pleasantly sweet. Can be substituted for brown sugar or coconut sugar.
• Lemon zest - the lemon flavor in a cake is always pleasant, but it can also be optional and replaced with 1 or 2 teaspoons of vanilla.
• Creme fraîche - this dairy is nothing more than fresh cream, but with about 30% (and up to 50%) of fat to which a culture of bacteria has been added. Due to bacterial fermentation, its texture is thicker and creamier, thus avoiding the presence of thickeners, and has a slightly acidic flavor.

How to make

• Start by beating the egg yolks together with the sugar until it dissolves and the cream is pale and fluffy.
• To this cream are added the lemon zest and then the creme fraîche.
• Then, the chestnut flour (previously sifted and mixed with the baking powder) is involved in the preparation. When sifting, we will avoid the formation of lumps.
• Apart, beat the egg whites.
• The egg whites are involved in the preparation, little by little, so that they don't lose air and collapse.
• The preparation is then poured into a greased and sprinkled with sugar pan (the one in this recipe is 20cm).
• Bake at 180ºC between 35 to 40 minutes.
• Decorate with some powdered sugar after cooling and when serving, as the cake has some moisture and it'll gradually dissolve the sugar we apply.
• In this decoration, I used the crochet/lace technique, in which we basically use those old lace cloths or towels (washed and cleaned) and put them on top of the cold cake and sift some powdered sugar on top. Not all cakes are good candidates for this type of decoration, but it is quite original. In light coloured cakes, you can also make the design by replacing sugar with cocoa powder. 

Chestnut, cream fraîche and lemon recipe

 

Ingredients

4 eggs
125 gr of sugar
200 gr of creme fraîche
125 gr of chestnut flour
2 teaspoons of baking powder
Zest of 1 lemon

1. Beat the egg yolks with the sugar until you get a soft cream.
2. Add the lemon zest and creme fraîche, wrapping well.
3. Apart, sift the brown flour and add the baking powder.
4. The flour is then incorporated into the previous preparation.
5. Whip the egg whites.
6. The egg whites are gradually well wrapped in the preparation with the help of a whisk or spatula.
7. Place in a greased and sprinkled with sugar pan.
8. Bake at 180ºC between 35 to 40 minutes.
9. Decorate with some powdered sugar.

Adapted from "Lemon, creme fraîche & chestnut cake recipe" / Originally posted in 2019

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This mousse is a creamy and fresh spring dessert, which highlights one of the fruits of the season and its balanced flavor between sweet and slightly acidic.

When we get to May, these orange coloured fruits start to be seen for sale, often full of spots, inducing those who do not know to think they are already touched or damaged. Actually, loquats are somewhat sensitive fruits that are easily marked on the skin by their tree, and these bruises often do not pass to the pulp.



I always got used to savoring loquats since I was little because for many years we had a tree of this fruit in our garden, but they were smaller in size than the ones found for sale.

Every year, when I buy loquats, this is one of the recipes I usually make, sweetening it sometimes with some sugar and sometimes using condensed milk.

The ingredients

This mousse is very simple to make and only needs 4 ingredients to prepare it:

• Loquats - For this recipe, I calculated about 2 to 3 ripe medium-sized fruits per person.
• Cream - as always, I prefer heavy cream without additives; between 15 to 30 minutes before starting the recipe, you should put the cream in the freezer to make it cooler and whip faster.
• Gelatine - helps to fix the whipped cream while maintaining its lightness, since the purée loquats are added (a moist and heavy element).
• Condensed milk - I prefer to use skimmed condensed milk or else condensed coconut milk, in a proportion of about 1 tablespoon per person.

How to make

Since loquats oxidize very quickly, I like to start this mousse by preparing the other elements first:

• After the cream has cooled, start whipping the cream and then add the condensed milk.
• Soak gelatin sheets in cold water, then drain.
• Place them in a bowl and melt in the microwave (defrost function) for a few seconds, enough to melt completely but without boiling.
• Mix a few spoonfuls of the cream preparation with the gelatin and mix everything well. Gelatin is never added directly to the whole of the cream and condensed milk preparation because we risk that the gelatin might solidify very quickly (due to the thermal shock) and we'll have some solid pieces of gelatin in the middle of the mousse.
• As the content of the gelatin bowl is added to the remaining cream, everything is well wrapped so all is uniform.
• Place in the refrigerator while the loquats are being prepared.
• Fill a bowl with water and some lemon juice, in which we will place the pieces of fruit as we peel and pit, to prevent them from oxidizing (which happens very quickly) and thus keep their natural color.
• With the help of a hand mixer, blender, or food processor puree the loquats.
• Finally, this puree is added to the remaining ingredients, mixing well until the mousse is homogeneous, and is distributed in bowls or cups that are placed in the refrigerator until serving time, simple or decorated to taste.

Loquat and condensed milk mousse

Ingredients

8 or 10 loquats
200 ml of heavy/whipping cream
4 sheets of gelatin
4 tablespoons of condensed milk
lemon juice 

1. Whip the cream along with the condensed milk.
2. Soak the gelatin sheets in a bit of water, and when they are moist, drain.
3. Place in a bowl, and take it about 10 to 15 seconds to the microwave (defrost mode) to melt (but don't let it boil).
4. Add a few tablespoons of the cream+condensed milk mixture to the gelatin and mix well.
5. Pour the contents of the gelatin bowl into the bowl of cream+condensed milk and wrap it well with a whisk or hand mixer.
6. Place it in the refrigerator while peeling and pitting the loquats into a bowl with water and some lemon juice.
7. In a food processor, blender or hand mixer, puree the loquat pulp.
8. Using a whisk or mixer, wrap the fruit pulp with the mixture of the cream+condensed milk+gelatin.
9. Divide it into bowls and return to the refrigerator until serving time.

This cake of Spanish origin, in addition to being very simple to make, is delicious and ideal to enjoy with a cup of tea or coffee, at Carnival or any time during the year.


Around this time, the small town of Laza in Galicia is known in Spain for its characteristic and very old Carnival celebrations, with some similarities to celebrations also held in the North of Portugal.

One of the desserts that can't be missed in this festivity is the Bica Blanca de Laza, a slightly dense egg white cake with a soft texture and a crunchy top, which is given away to the population on the Sunday before Carnival.

There are also other similar Bicas recipes, but they use whole eggs instead of egg whites and also butter in addition to all the other ingredients.

The ingredients

This cake needs only 4 ingredients: egg whites, sugar, flour and cream.

• Egg whites - there are recipes with different amounts of egg whites, but in this case, I used 8 because they were the ones that I had in the freezer and that were leftovers from other desserts; pasteurized whites sold in the supermarket can also be used.
• Sugar - the various traditional recipes I read require a lot of sugar, so I decided to reduce the amount in this recipe.
• Flour - Traditionally, all-purpose flour is used, but there are those who use self-raising flour to make the cake even softer.
• Cream - instead of butter, it's the cream (with 30% fat) that provides fat to the cake, and since there was only a 200ml container in my fridge, I didn't use the 350ml suggested in similar recipes.

How to make

• Before starting to prepare the cake, it's better to place the cream in the freezer (for about half an hour) so that it becomes very cold, and thus become fluffier. As soon as they are cold, beat them carefully until whipped cream and reserve aside (don't beat too much because the milk solids start to separate and we get butter instead of whipped cream ...).
• It is also convenient that the egg whites are at room temperature so that they can be assembled faster along with the sugar and the meringue is firmer.
• After sifting the flour, it is gradually added to the whites with sugar, wrapping with a wooden spoon or spatula, always stirring from the bottom up.
• Then the cream is added to the preparation, wrapping it from the bottom up and pouring everything into a greased rectangular pan lined with parchment paper.
• Before going to the oven, sprinkle with the remaining sugar (which will form a sweet crust on the cake).
• After the cooking time, use the toothpick test to check.
• Allow some cooling before unmolding and cutting.

Galician Carnival cake (Bica de Laza) recipe

Ingredients
 
8 egg whites
300 gr of all purpose flour
200 ml of cream (30% fat)
250 gr of sugar
50 gr of sugar for sprinkling

1. Whip the cream (as for whipped cream) and reserve.
2. Beat the egg whites, and as they become firm, add the sugar gradually until it forms a consistent meringue.
3. Gradually wrap the sifted flour, and then the whipped cream.
4. Place the preparation in a rectangular pan (I used a 30x20cm one) greased and lined with parchment paper.
5. Distribute the reserved sugar for sprinkling on top.
6. Bake at 180ºC for 50 to 55 minutes.

  
Adapted from "Cómo hacer bica blanca de Laza. Receta tradicional gallega"