From Italy With Love: the Ultimate Autumn Chestnut Cake
Castagnaccio, naturally gluten and dairy-free and a bundled-up Lake Como weekend
Ciao friends!
How’s your weekend? The Lake Como area is in full autumn with chilly days and cold nights with spiky chestnut husks and fallen leaves on every forest path. I’m so in love with this season! When I first moved to Italy, I had a sense of loss for American autumn cider mills, pumpkin patches, corn mazes, and annual peak foliage hikes with my friend, Jenni. Although I still have nostagia for those days, I now get equally as excited about our autumn traditions in northern Italy: collecting chestnuts in the woods, our annual Thanksgiving tradition to hike to a mountain agriturismo (farm-to-table) with friends, the inspiring Orticolario garden event, the incredible Slow Food Terra Madre, and streghe and castagne, the witches and chestnut fair. You see a running theme? Well, food, of course! And interwoven through it all this season - sweet or savory, roasted, boiled or baked - chestnuts are a big, tasty thing!
Castagnaccio
Castagnaccio, pronounced cas-tan-yach-chyo, is a thin Italian chestnut cake, lightly sweet, naturally gluten and dairy free, and studded with the crunch of pine nuts. This cake is irresistable, thin and crunchy on the outside, chewy and sweet with the contrast of pinenuts on the inside. My Italian mother-in-law initially introduced me to castagnaccio over a decade ago, using a no-measure method which was always delicious. Don’t you dare breathe a word of this to her (!), but Laurel Evans’ recipe from her Liguria, The Cookbook makes the most foolproof homeade castagnaccio I’ve ever tasted. It’s my new go-to recipe. Plus, with just 5-10 minutes of prep and 35-40 minutes in the oven, breakfast or snack is served! Grazie, Laurel!
The fresher the chestnut flour, the sweeter and purer the taste. It’s a natural sweetness, more subtle and not overly so like white sugar can be. I’m snacking on a morning slice right now with a cup of caffè americano. My favorite autumn snack. Mmmm. Join me!
It takes only 5-10 minutes to whip up a castagnaccio, then your oven does the work. I made today’s with flour from the Piedmont region that I bought at the Slow Food Terra Madre festival in Turin, Italy last weekend. This flour was from last year’s harvest, which is shown on the package date: December 4, 2023. It’s the freshest you can get in this moment as the chestnuts for 2024 are just starting to be gathered. I found the vendor, Montagnam, from Valle Stura, online if you want to check them out! The farina di castagne is stone ground and made from an ancient local variety of chestnut called “Garrone Rosso”.
PS Can we categorize this as a pasta for WPFI? Well, it’s a little sneaky, but yes we can! Castagnaccio is made with pasta. In Italian, pasta means ‘flour mixed with salt and water’ and castagnaccio is made with chestnut flour!
Autumn weekend on Lake Como
Jump ahead to the recipe or do a quick dive into our fall weekend in photos. Our dear friends Greg and Steve came to visit us from London, and we had the best time exploring old aperitivo haunts and new favorite hikes and mountain farms!
Castagnaccio
Chestnut Cake
reprinted with permission from Laurel Evans, Liguria: the Cookbook
*I halve the recipe and make it in a 9-inch round cake tin; her measurements are in cups but I added my grams equivalents below
1/2 cup raisins
5 cups (17 1/2 ounces) chestnut flour (480g)
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 c sugar (100g)
4 cups cold water (946ml)
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for brushing
1/2 teaspoon fennel seeds (optional) Note from Lolly; I have never tried with fennel!
1 cup pine nuts (Note from Lolly: I have also substituted with chopped or halved almonds which is a common sub in Italy and works great. You can also mix in 50g of chopped dark chocolate which is a nice level-upper
Fresh, whole milk ricotta for serving (optional)
Naturally gluten-free, this dense, thin cake is popular everywhere that chestnuts grow in Italy, especially Liguria and Tuscany. It’s never cloyingly sweet, sometimes borders on savory, and the distinctive, almost gummy, texture is different from what you would expect from a typical cake. Chestnuts were a staple of farmers and country folk, only partially replaced as the main component of their diet by the arrival of the potato in the late 1500s. The original, “poor” castagnaccio contained only water and chestnut flour, but over time was embelished with pine nuts, walnuts, raisins, candied orange peel, herbs, and spices.
INSTRUCTIONS
Preheat oven to 180 degrees F; brush a 9-by-13-inch baking dish generously with olive oil; set aside.
Place raisins in a small bowl and cover with cold water. Let soak for 30 minutes, then drain and set aside. Meanwhile, sift chestnut flour into a large bowl; stir in salt and sugar. Slowly add water, a little at a time, stirring constantly with a shisk to avoid forming lumps. Stir in 2 tablespoons olive oil, fennel seeds, alf of the raisins and half of the pine nuts. Pour batter into prepared pan and scatter remaining pine nuts and raising decoratively over the surface. Bake until golden brown and small cracks appear on the surface, about 35 to 40 minutes.Let cool completely before serving. Dollop fresh ricotta on top of each slice right before serving if desired.
Grazie a Laurel e buon appetito!
Tips from Lolly:
Sprinkle sugar on top before baking for an extra crunchy, sweet crust
Best warm out of the oven, as you get the most contrast of texture between the crunch top and the chewy inside.
It’s totally worth a quick reheat in the toaster or air fryer to enjoy with a coffee for breakfast or snack!
A few room temperature slices also seem to make it into our backpacks if we’re going for a hike 😉
Most traditional recipes include raisins, but we are not Team Raisin in my house, so no uva secca. It’s just as delicious without them!
x Lolly
I have always wanted to make this so when I'm in Italy (I arrive Wednesday!!!) I will find flour and try it out, with fennel, and will report back. Also, those heels! I'm not a heel wearer but if I were, those would be in my shoe repertoire.
I tried this in the prescribed pan size and they were very thick. Tastes great but will try a half sheet pan next time.