Traditionally produced chestnut hearts in the Conditorei Sluka  

Chestnut hearts from Conditorei Sluka 

Chestnut time - chestnut hearts made with love 

We are known beyond the borders of Vienna for our traditionally produced chestnut hearts. Here, the craft is lived in a comprehensible way: we spare no effort and only buy the best chestnuts available on the market. And we have been doing so since the K.u.K. time.

Depending on the harvest, different types of chestnuts are preferable. We buy these chestnuts from our retailer, who knows our requirements and has been able to fulfil them for decades. Consistency creates trust.

When the chestnuts arrive, the same ritual happens every year: all the employees in production - whether in the bakery or the kitchen - get a little more hectic and finalise their current work.

Now everyone has to work together: The chestnuts are cooked, halved while still hot and separated from the skins. You have to work quickly but also carefully here, otherwise pieces of peel will stick to the chestnut pieces, which would darken the colour of the chestnut puree and negatively affect the taste.

So we - not just the master confectioner, but all the employees - stand around the large central table in the bakery, paying attention to what we are doing and sharing a story or two with our colleagues along the way. It takes quite a while to process a 30kg bag of chestnuts...

Once the chestnuts have been scraped out, the resulting small pieces of chestnut are pressed through a fine sieve and then mixed with icing sugar and rum to taste.
 

Mhhh...this flavour....

Now comes the technically very demanding part: a heart is formed from the resulting farce - nice and thin - the consistency has to be just right, otherwise it won't be able to be dipped and will fall into the chocolate coating.

So, carefully dip them into the semi-sweet chocolate and hang them from small hooks to drip off. Once the chocolate coating has hardened, the resulting heart can be carefully removed. The part of the farce that is still visible is dipped in milk couverture and placed in a small paper capsule.

It takes a long time to create a traditional masterpiece - we are proud of this and are delighted with our customers, who rightly expect this quality here and express their satisfaction with a smile when they savour it - our praise!

The same applies here: consistency creates trust