Chestnut cream cake roll (Mont Blanc Cake)
Chestnut Cream Cake Roll (or Mont Blanc cake roll) is a pastry topped with spaghetti-like chestnut paste cream. Different from French Mont Blanc cake who usually has a hard meringue or biscuit bottom, Japanese-style chestnut cream cake always has a soft and fluffy chiffon cake bottom.
Equipment
- blender
- hand mixer
- Piping bags
- 8-hole piping tip (size 234)
Ingredients
For making chestnut paste
- 250 g peeled cooked chestnuts
- 250 g water
- 1 black tea bag (To add some brown color and some tea aroma. Skip if you don't like/have black tea.)
- 30 g unsalted butter
- 30 g brown sugar (or cane sugar)
For making chestnut cream
- 200 g chestnut paste (About half of the chestnut paste you made)
- 100 g heavy whipping cream
For making the roll cake base
- 4 large eggs (Each egg weighs about 60g with shell)
- 50 g cake flour (Can be substituted with 40g all purpose flour + 10g cornstarch)
- 40 g vegetable oil
- 40 g milk (I used milk tea instead. You can also use soy milk, coconut milk, almond milk, or even water.)
- ⅔ tsp vanilla extract (optional)
- ⅔ tsp lemon juice (Or white vinegar. Actually optional if you are skillful at whipping egg whites.)
- 60 g sugar
For the vanilla cream filling
- 200 g heavy whipping cream
- 15 g powdered sugar (can be substituted with cane sugar)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 10 blueberries (or fruits of your choice)
For decorations
- 6 blueberries
- 3 lotus biscoff cookies
- Some herbs (I used some thymes, cuz I only had that at home. Some mint leaves would actually be better!)
Instructions
- Make a Japanese Roll Cake by following this recipe. Wrap the roll cake with a piece of parchment paper, keep it in a food storage bag, seal the bag and store in the freezer until ready to use.
- Add 250g peeled cooked chestnuts, 250g cold water, and 1 black tea bag to a small saucepot, cover the lid and bring the water to a boil. Let simmer at medium-low heat for 40 minutes until fork-tender.
- Pour the boiled chestnuts with the soup, 30g unsalted butter, and 30g brown sugar into a blender. Blend until smooth. (You can add 1 tbsp of water at a time it it feels too dry to blend. The texture should be similar to peanut butter after it's blended.)
- Add 200g chestnut paste and 100g heavy whipping cream to a mixing bowl, whip with a hand mixer until stiff peaks form - the peaks stand straight up when the beaters are lifted, and the peaks won't collapse or dissolve as time goes by.
- Add the 234 tip to a piping bag. Transfer the chestnut cream to the bag. Push out the air bubbles and give it a test.
- Pipe the chestnut vermicelli in a back and forth pattern until the cake's top surface is entirely covered.
- Refrigerate for 2 hours to overnight (it actually tastes better after being refrigerated overnight) before slicing and serving.
To Store
- Can be stored in the refrigerator in a fully covered container for 3 days. (You can store the chiffon cake roll in the freezer until ready to use, but do not keep the chestnut cream cake in the freezer.)