Mont Blanc 🌰

It's the season of chestnut 🌰! The funny thing is, we literally live on a street with "Chestnut" in its name. I recently realized that there are chestnut trees in our neighborhood. I've seen them once in a suburb in Japan, but never thought that they could be close by. I love chestnuts so much that I love them in every possible form. No matter if they are used in sweet desserts, savory dishes, complete shaped, crumbled, paste...etc. The most memorable and common type of chestnuts in my childhood were chestnuts roasted in sand with brown sugar. I remembered feeling amazed by the large machine turning and stirring the chestnuts with very high heat. We would need to break the hard and hot shell to be able to eat the delicious middle part. Although my finger tips always became browny in the end, the flavorfulness was definitely worth the effort. 

However, not until I met the chestnut tree near my home did I know that there are other types of chestnut and some are even inedible and toxic, one common one is called "Horse chestnuts". I was super excited when I found chestnut trees near me, but unfortunately, they were horse chestnut trees. Unlike more usual and edible chestnuts, horse chestnuts are more rounded in shape without a tassel or point on the end on the nuts. Also, horse chestnuts are packed inside a smoother and more spiny bur, while edible chestnuts are packed inside a more pin-covered bur. I found this website with very helpful images to identify their difference.

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One of my favorite desserts is called Mont Blanc 🌰🏔. I do not have a lot of chances to taste it so I would always expect for it if I had a chance. I also thought of creating my own ones and I knew it would take a lot of effort and time to make the chestnut puree. I finally determined to make one on Alex's 30th birthday! And it took me three days to prepare for every part from scratch of this Mont Blanc and finally assembled them together on his birthday 🎉.

I initially planned to have the cream mountain surrounded with chestnut puree noodles instead of this rough and uneven surface. My piping nozzle was too small to let my relatively indelicate and not fined enough chestnut paste went through, so this became the alternate design. 

It was not a perfect cake, but we were happy how it came out and enjoyed the taste 😋! I really wanted to try making smaller ones next time!