Chestnut Flour

Chestnut flour is a grayish tan colored flour made from ground chestnuts. It contains no gluten and makes an interesting flavor addition to many recipes, as in the cake recipe below.

Cooking Tips

• Although the fact that it contains no gluten makes this flour of interest to people with celiac disease, it does work best when mixed with regular gluten containing flour to make cakes and breads. Typically a proportion of twenty to fifty percent chestnut flour to regular flour will give good results.
• The flavor of chestnuts marries especially well with chocolate, almonds, hazelnuts and honey.
• Add this flour to your favorite crepe recipe, pie crust, or use the Corsican cake recipe given below.
• It also makes an interesting ingredient in pasta recipes. If you make your own pasta, try substituting part of the regular flour with chestnut, then topping the pasta with a pine nut sauce for a delicious flavor combination.
• For those suffering from gluten intolerance, you will find some good recipes that contain this gluten free flour mixed with other gluten free alternatives at Chestnuts On Line.

Chestnut Cake Recipe

When we were living in Corsica, I had the chance to taste many local specialties containing chestnuts including an unusual chestnut beer.

Up until the start of the 20th century, chestnuts were a very important part of peoples' diets in Corsica and in other places in the world. Because they are very nutritious, people could subsist on chestnuts with little need for meat or wheat products, making it the perfect poor mountain man's food.

This simple cake recipe is very similar to what you'll find served sometimes in Corsican restaurants.