0 Chocolate chestnut brownies

After baking with chestnut in my last clandestine cake club cake post, I had both some puree and whole chestnut leftover. I love chocolate brownies so I thought I would mix the two, the resultant bake is a lovely festive treat and is great with a coffee, not at all nutty more of an aromatically moist crumbly treat enhanced by adding the chestnut.

Ingredients

• 140g dark chocolate (approx 50% cocoa solids or more)
• 200g approx chestnut puree ( I blitzed my leftovers)
• 200g granulated sugar
• 170g plain flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 large eggs - free range
• 100g butter
• Drop of milk to loosen mix if necessary

Method

• Preheat your oven to 170c fan / 180c nornal oven, line a deep square or oblong baking tin, approx 20cm square ish
• Melt chocolate and butter in bowl in the warming oven
• Mix your eggs and sugar and whisk until ribbony and volume increased
• Cool slightly your chocolate and butter mix , then mix with your egg mixture and all your other ingredients, adding a little milk if necessary.
• Pour into the prepared tin
• Bake for approx 15- 20 minutes until cooked but still slightly moist in the middle
• Remove from oven and fully cool in the tin
• Cut in to chunks and dust with icing sugar, if you are feeling very festive you could use gold spray or edible glitter too.

Detail: Chocolate chestnut brownies

0 CCC No 11 - 12 Days of Christmas - Mulled wine, pear, chestnut and cinnamon cake with a chocolate chestnut ganache

On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me - A Partridge in a Pear Tree !

The Theme for our festive Christmas meeting of South Lancashire Clandestine Cake is the 12 days of Christmas and we are lucky enough to be able to hold our joint festive gathering with Ribble Valley CCC at the lovely Shaw Hill Golf and Country Club.

Our sumptuous venue is probably our most opulent venue so far and we were warmly welcomed for our Christmas themed meeting, cake bakers from across the county ventured out on a cold winters night and brought a delicious range of cakes baked to our theme.

I really struggled with the theme this month but eventually settled on a mulled wine, pear, cinnamon cake with a chocolate chestnut ganache topping, wanting to try something a little different. The recipe is from the Good Food website and can be found here, I just adapted the decoration.

We had cakes for most of the 12 days, quite a few bundt ring cakes, some featuring pear, swans a swimming, geese a laying and milk cakes, as usual our membership rose to the occasion. We were also lucky enough to be entertained by choristers from Blackburn Cathedral who treated us to festive carols, there wasn't a dry eye in the house.

Massive thanks go to Shaw Hill for such an atmospheric location for our festive event.

Detail: CCC No 11 - 12 Days of Christmas - Mulled wine, pear, chestnut and cinnamon cake with a chocolate chestnut ganache