Cake #11 - Chocolate Chestnut Torte with Cognac Mousse - Cambridge edition

Before I start this, if you have not checked out the other cakes posted in the blur of posting since our unintentional hiatus, look in the sidebar and click on the other cakes from the January posts.  Mindy & I made 3 this holiday season - some not to be missed!

Ahhh, the Chocolate Chestnut Torte with Cognac Mousse. as it is supposed to look.  And how it looked when I finally was through with it.  My journey, and it was a journey, was nearly identical to Mindy's with the exception of the QUEST.  Or I should say the challenge that became my quest in search of these cursed "marrons glaces".  A seemingly minor ingredient, since one needs only 6 of them, and they appear to be candied chestnuts, and they get chopped up and put inside as a thin layer of nuts in the cake.  Actually the regular chestnuts required in the recipe were no picnic either.

Well, I left Whole Foods in my usual huff.  After asking at the bakery counter about chestnuts, candied chestnuts, and dried chestnuts, I was carrying around a baggie of bulk whole chestnuts that I would need to roast and shell - surely adding 2 hours to the process.  But then, I found a 7oz jar of the "whole, roasted, peeled chestnuts" I needed.  Yahoo! Except I need 9 oz.  And this little jar costs $15.99.  I would need 2 jars of them.  Outrageous!  They sell the exact same chestnuts in bigger jars at Russo's in Watertown.  I don't care if it is New Year's Eve and Ben & I had a daytime date, I would just have to squeeze in a trip to Russo's (30 minutes away) - and hope that they did not clear out their stash after Thanksgiving (where I bought their 2nd to last jar this year).

Since it was supposed to be a date, I told Ben we should run this quick errand first, but stop off at Sofra for coffees to get us through, since we have been meaning to check it out (owned by the Oleana folks) and it was in the same direction-ish.  What a wonderful pit stop!  And they sold candied dates and Rose Water (remind me of that when we need it for the Persian love cake - it will cost $8 for a bottle of which I will use 1 tablespoon and then maybe attempt to make Mashti Malone's rosewater ice cream) - so we thought maybe the elusive "marrons glaces" could not be far behind.  We showed the chef our recipe and she suggested Whole Foods and an Italian specialty in Davis Square, but was not at all encouraging.

The snow is coming down at a blinding clip now.  Wasn't expecting that.  Success at Russo's!!  Sort of.  They have a 16oz jar of the exact same chestnuts as WF, but for $12.99!  Yeah!  Take that WF!  Though it has now been 2 hours of my day to save that extra jar.  We scour the specialty shelves for "Marrons Glaces" - I finally ask someone.  YES!  Well, they USED to have them, but nobody bought them, then they expired and they did not re-stock them.  Hmmm.  Bummer, but now we know they do exist.

There's at least 2 inches of snow on the ground and more coming.  We stop off at iParty to be more festive with staying in on New Year's Eve.  And its right next to the liquor store where we need to buy cognac.  We are not cognac drinkers.  Big debate over whether it is a type of liquor or a brand and how many ounces are in a tablespoon.  Oh baby, it is a type of liquor (Brand = Courvoissier)  and a cheap bottle of it costs $29.99.  C'mon, really? This is the most expensive cake of all time!  We need 5 tablespoons.  We find an airline minibottle, but it might only have 2 TBS, so we buy the mid-flask size for $16 - good gravy, I hope we like cognac.  Turns out we do not really, so if you stop by and want a glass, by all means, drink the leftovers.  I am sure it will still be in the cabinet.  Liquor store also has a snootie foodie (and dusty/rarely used) gift food section with candied nuts of every variety, except chestnuts.  Well, crap.  I've made candied pecans before, I'll just do it with the chestnuts.

But wait!  Remember Formaggio Kitchen?  We don't.  All we know is that we pass it on the way to Full Moon and Mindy once gave us a ridiculous foodie gift basket from there.  It's worth a shot.  Heck.   There's only 3 inches of snow on the ground now.

Inside Formaggio Kitchen, there is a festive champagne tasting and cheeses too!  The guys running the place look at our recipe, and light up!  YES!! They do indeed have "Marrons glaces".  YIPPEE!!  And then they berate us for making them our 5th stop in the search.  I berate us too when I see their tiny produce section has celeriac, which I cannot find anywhere.  While we sample cheeses, the young clerk comes back, hang dogged, "Well, we had them yesterday.  Beautiful little packaging.  Must have sold them all."  Drat.  All is not lost, we bought a bottle of the champagne since we forgot at the liquor store and now 5 inches of snow on the ground, we are not headed back out.

(Cake batter with chestnuts ground into the flour.  Looked luxurious.  And like an "Apre Apricot Facial Scrub")

On our ride home, I talk about how I will candy the chestnuts.  While we wait for a light in Harvard Square, I remember Cardullo's.  Maybe I should just pop in there and ask while Ben waits?  It's not totally out of the way.  SUCCESS!  In less than 30 seconds, the clerk leads me to the aisle, tells me they ran out of the little packages, but they have them.  She hands me a beautiful tin.  A small tin. A tin with no picture of these things or what might be inside - but I am holding the elusive "marrons glaces".  Now, after 5 previous stops, I was prepared to pay, and pay a LOT for this dumb ingredient.  But, when the shop-keeper of this gourmet food shop says, "they're a little pricey".  I pause. How pricey? SIXTY-FIVE DOLLARS!  Umm, no.  Quest over.  That is not even funny.  No joke.  What are they, like $10 per chestnut? Candied in gold?

(Oh, in order to have a cognac mousse, you have to make an entire chocolate mousse and then use it as a layer in the cake.  It would have been great on its own.  Minus the cognac.)

(Here THEY are red tin or blue tin - $65!  BTW, the top right and left jars of chestnuts on the shelf are the regular ones we bought from Russos)

They have some other "candied chestnuts in syrup" for $17.  I have no idea if that is an appropriate substitution.  Shopkeeper calls over their buyer to describe it to me.  Doesn't sound too promising.  I note that they have my jar of regular chestnuts there too, the big one, like from Russo's.  $18.99.  More than I paid from Russo's but still loads cheaper than WF - and this is a gourmet shoppe - I feel good about that.  And really, not all that panged about leaving the $65 "Marron Glaces" behind.  There is no way to have bought them in good conscience.

(my version of marrons glaces with the midi size Remy Martin cognac in back)

Now there are 6 inches of snow on the ground.  We need to pick up the girls from day care, shovel the land, and I need to candy some chestnuts at home and start the cake that says it will take 5 hours.  Date over.

(This is the layer with my "marrons glaces" - really?  6 stores for this layer?!)

Truth be told, I used all my steam in the quest.  We'll have leftover peppermint ice cream for dessert tonight and make it a danged New Year's Day Cake.  If you want to know how the actual cake making went, read Mindy's post.  Nearly identical, except I used the chestnuts required, and when I started to make my own "marrons glaces", the recipe I found, begins:  "Start this recipe FOUR DAYS before you want to use them".  HA!  Of course.  Short story is that I Rachel Rayed their asses into some version of a candied chestnut, chopped them up into the cake - and we will never know the difference since we have no idea what it is we were missing.

(Cake requires 3 8 inch round pans.  I have 2.  Borrowed 3rd from neighbor.  Cakes baked.  Chose best one for top layer.  Then saw that it was too big and lopsided.  Tried to flip it over but flipped it back when I feared it would crush the mousse layer.)

Cake cost just for the ingredients I did not have:

Cognac:  $45 (if you bought the whole bottle)

Chestnuts: $32 (if you bought at whole foods)

Marrons Glaces: $65 (if you bought them)

Total:  $148

My total: $29

(so, i took the risk of sawing off the excess - fortunately, with success, though Kassi was taking this picture to officially document disaster.)

And while this is the most expensive cake to ever attempt to be made, and I spent my entire date hunting the ingredient I ultimately did not buy, and we do not like any form of liquor in our cakes or mousse's, and the cake was great, but not worth a repeat performance (unless you have a chestnut lover), I would not have traded the hunting day with Ben for anything.  We could never have planned that date, nor a better one for us.  Plus, we now have Sofra & Formaggio Kitchen in our arsenal - practically in our backyard the whole time and never would have gone there otherwise, so thank you crazy Chocolate Chestnut Cognac Mousse Cake.

Voila!