not a cake for delicious bastards (delicious bastards? that's almost Chomskyian in its semantic absurdity), actually this cake is the bastard child of two other delicious cakes.
pain d'epices is the wonderful spiced bread that can be used as a sweet, or an interesting taste to accompany meat. it seems to have originated from a Flemish recipe which found its way to Burgundy when a Duke married a Flemish woman and no doubt used his evil control over the spice trade to great effect in order to provide her with her favourite honey cake. the recipe still made in Burgundy is a soft bread with dark sugar, honey, candied orange peel, cinnamon, cloves and aniseed.
but pain d'epices is made with wheat flour (or sometimes rye flour) and I wanted a wheat free version, so it became something like castagnaccio as well.
castagnaccio is the famous chestnut flour and rosemary cake from Tuscany (in The Food of Italy Claudia Roden attributes the best to Lucca, a province in Tuscany on the Serchio river). it's not exactly sweet. sometimes it contains no other sweetness than the chestnuts, but the version published in 1891 by Pelegrino Artusi (Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well) is sweetened with raisins, which is most common, and contains rosemary, olive oil and pine nuts. castagnaccio is made just with water and oil so it comes out soft and dense and almost creamy in the middle without any leavening.
I wanted the bastard cake to be a little lighter, however, and was surprised how well a bit of bicarb soda worked. the result is like a fine, soft genoise sponge cake texture, however it dries out quite fast when cut so try to leave it whole til the last minute.
chestnut flour, like chestnuts, goes rancid quickly, so keep it in the fridge or freezer.
chestnut pain d'epices
makes a 3cm high loaf tin cake. to make a larger cake increase the quantities and bake for a little longer but maintain the temperature.
50g chestnut flour
50g fine pure cornflour
50g butter, melted
50g brown sugar
25g caster sugar
1 egg
zest and juice of 1 orange (not all the juice may be required)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
about 6 allspice berries, ground
2 cloves, ground
nutmeg, grated or ground
1/2 a teaspoon of bicarb soda (this is the pure salt form- baking powder could also be used but may contain wheat products)
preheat the oven to 180°c
mix the flours and sugars together then add the spices and orange zest.
add the melted butter and the egg and mix well.
the flours absord liquid differently to wheat four so add about a quarter of of the orange juice and beat well, smoothing out any lumps. wait a few minutes and check the consistency, adding orange juice as necessary. continue until you have a pourable consistency which is still quite thick (think strawberry thickshake).
once the consistency is correct, add the bicarb soda, mix in well then pour into a lined tin and bake for about 15 minutes (until the top springs back when lightly pressed).
cool for 5 minutes in the tin then turn out onto a rack.
