Recipe: Chestnut Charlotte

1 Prepare your custard cream and let it cool(*)

2 In a heavy saucepan make a syrup with the 400g (14 oz) of sugar cubes, half the lemon juice and 25 cl (1.1 cups) of water. Let cook for 5 minutes, add the rum, remove from heat and let cool.

3 Drain your can of chestnut puree, place it in a large bowl and add half of your cold syrup, stir with a whisk to mix the 2 well, then incorporate half of the custard cream, mix well and put back in the cold.

4 In a tall charlotte mold (Teflon or Flexipan)

on the bottom prepare a small rosette with ladyfinger biscuits moistened with syrup cut diagonally (in rosette).

Then pour 3 centimeters of your chestnut cream and place your mold in the freezer for 10 minutes.

5 Meanwhile cut the ladyfinger biscuits so they have exactly the height of your mold, then with the help of a brush on your work surface, flat, moisten your ladyfinger biscuits with your syrup.

6 Remove your mold from the freezer then place the biscuits around it, pushing them into the barely set cream (this allows for beautiful decoration)

7 Take the rest of the biscuits and cut them into large pieces and soak everything with syrup

8 Then you put a layer of chestnut mixture, a layer of biscuits etc until the top and finish with a layer of biscuits.

You put in the freezer and it's done

Two important things:

If your charlotte is for the same day, only leave it 40 minutes in the freezer, unmold it upside down

then surround it with a pretty ribbon and sprinkle it with powdered sugar, serve the custard cream separately (the 1/2 liter (2.1 qt) that remains) in a gravy boat.

If it's for later