Recipe: Whipped chestnut cream

1 Put your peeled chestnuts to cook in your milk with 1.75 oz (50 g) sugar and the vanilla.

2 Test the chestnuts from time to time. When they crush under your fingers, drain them and remove the vanilla pods. Keep the remaining milk for breakfast the next day, for example mixed with a little chocolate.

3 Pass these chestnuts through the fine grid of your vegetable mill.

4 Weigh the strained purée. Then, in a saucepan, mix it with the same weight in caster sugar. With a wooden spatula, keeping an eye on it over the heat, keep beating it until your purée is nice and dry. Then transfer it to a large bowl and let it cool. What comes next is definitely less dietetic (smiles).

5 Now prepare 1.1 qt (1 liter) of whipped cream (Chantilly).

6 Mix 3 tablespoons of your Chantilly with a whisk into your chestnut cream, then add the rest by lifting and cutting with a spatula like a soufflé. Then place this whipped chestnut cream in the fridge. Serve in a dome on a large round platter in the center of the table. For an even lighter touch, the author suggests surrounding this bowl with half-meringues. And of course, it will be excellent with cat's tongue biscuits, in a roll or a good yule log (you decorate and fill it, then keep it in the freezer and serve it chilled with crème anglaise around it).