Chestnut Flour

I mentioned this time last year that my parents have a garden full of chestnut trees and I grew up enjoying the wonderful free food source of chestnuts every autumn in the form of soups and roasted treats. Unfortunately I now live a few 100 miles from my parents and no longer have a free source of chestnuts on my doorstep. So it was a much appreciated surprise when I received a jiffy envelope stuffed full of chestnuts from my mum the other day (even more so when I saw how much a local supermarket were charging for the tiniest little bag of these tasty morsels)! 

This year to make a break from the usual soups (as well as the burgers and chocolate treats I made last year) I decided to turn my chestnuts into chestnut flour thus opening up a number of alternative recipes for me to try with this ingredient.

In my excitement to get experimenting with my chestnuts I didn’t properly weigh or measure ingredients when making my flour but thought it would still be useful to describe the basic principle on how to make your own chestnut flour as I have a plan on how I am going to use this ingredient in a recipe that I will be sharing on the blog soon!

INGREDIENTS

Fresh chestnuts (enough to fill a jiffy envelope!!!)

Set the oven to 200 deg C

Slice the bottoms off of the chestnuts and spread across a large roasting tray.

Place the chestnuts into the oven for about an hour.

After an hour remove from the oven and allow to cool until you are able to handle them. Then peel the chestnuts, place them back on the roasting tray and return to the oven for another 30 minutes to allow them to dry out.

Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely.

Once cool transfer the chestnuts to a food processor and blitz until a fine powder is produced.

Store in an airtight container until ready to be used.