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Corsica
Castagnacciu
A cake made of chestnut flour, pine nuts, raisins and rosemary: a traditional Corsican recipe.
Pastry or bakery speciality from Corsica.
Discover
AI-generated illustration
Corsica
A cake made of chestnut flour, pine nuts, raisins and rosemary: a traditional Corsican recipe.
Pastry or bakery speciality from Corsica.
AI-generated illustration
To understand this cake, one must go back to the tree. The first Corsican chestnut groves date from the medieval period, but it was "under the rule of Gênes" that they flourished: on 28 August 1548, the governor signed an ordinance requiring all landowners and tenant farmers to plant four fruit trees each year, including the chestnut tree, on pain of a fine.
In the north-eastern massif, the chestnut was the only tree planted: it was at this time that the region took the name of Castagniccia. Milled into flour, chestnuts regularly made up for shortfalls in cereal production and, during food shortages, provided the staple diet of the rural population: "As long as we have chestnuts, we will have bread", wrote Pascal Paoli in 1758.
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Until the early years of the 20th century, chestnut flour was eaten daily in the form of porridge, pancakes or bread, the dense porridge being pulenda. Other preparations combined it with brocciu, fresh cheese, sugar, dried or candied fruit and served as a sweet treat or dessert: the INAO cites tarts (torta castagnina), fritters and cakes — castagnacciu, franduline, panette, and cocciuli pisticcine, among others. From December to June, reports the same page, all kinds of preparations were made with this flour.
Castagnacciu has never left the kitchen. In November 2019, the editorial team of Corse Net Infos published a "traditional Corsican recipe": a cake made with chestnut flour, pine nuts, raisins and rosemary. In January 2026, the same newspaper featured it once again for its Sunday table, in a simpler version — Corsican chestnut flour, water, salt, olive oil and a few walnuts or pine nuts.
Appearance
Fresh from the oven, the surface is set and slightly cracked; in the enriched version, the top is garnished with the remaining pine nuts and crumbled fresh rosemary.
Taste
Chestnut flour is "rich in sugar", the INAO notes, and the simplest version adds none; the other adds a little sugar, raisins, pine nuts and fresh rosemary, with the editorial team of Corse Net Infos describing it as an "indulgent and flavoursome dessert".
Corsican chestnut flour, water, salt and olive oil, with a few walnuts or pine nuts; baked in the oven for 40 to 45 minutes at 180 °C.
chestnut flour, warm water, milk, a little sugar, olive oil, raisins, pine nuts and fresh rosemary; baked for 10 minutes at 180 °C, then 30 minutes at 160 °C, in an oiled tart dish.
before serving.
Castagnacciu is not itself protected. The Corsican chestnut flour with which it is made is: an AOC by decree of 24 November 2006, then a European PDO (AOP) since 2010.
No producer is listed for this product yet.
