| Hello reader Last week's fears of piles of laundry everywhere have indeed materialised. Turned out it costs as much to mend our fifteen year old washing machine as it does to buy a new one. We caved in and bought a new one. Hopefully it should arrive on Friday. As a result of the long mild autumn, we've had a bumper crop of ripe chillies. We spent the weekend deseeding them and I made a vat of chilli sauce. The chillies I didn't use went into the freezer and to neighbours. I love our chillies. CT has been breeding them for quite a few years now to get them to ripen earlier in the season. But goodness, I was heartily sick of them by the end of the weekend. Despite trying to be as careful as possible, it seems every surface we touch is covered in chilli heat.
This week's post is, inevitably a festive one. Sort of. It's an Italian chestnut cake called castagnaccio which is enjoyed in the winter season. But althought it's not specific to Christmas, I always associate chestnuts with the festivities. One of CT's work colleagues gave us a bag of chestnut flour from her home in Liguria. I adore chesntuts so couldn't wait to use it. Normally, I incorporate a little chestnut flour into various bakes, but this time I thought I'd go full out chestnut and make a castagnaccio. It's incredibly easy to make, is low in fat and sugar and is dairy, egg and gluten free. It has a fudgy chestnut base sweetened with raisins and a little honey and a crunchy nut top. It's really delicious. If you're wanting a vegan version, just sub the honey for an alternative such as maple or date syrup, use sugar or don't add any additional sweetener at all. Chestnut flour is already quite sweet and traditionnally nothing else is added. So I now have a little chestnut flour left, but not enough to make another castagnaccio. I'm currently trying to decide what to do with it. Any suggestions? Whilst I'm after suggestions, is there anything you'd like to see me cover in the run up to Christmas? I haven't quite finalised what I'll be doing yet, so there's room for manoeuvre. Popular posts this week include: Keep cooking and stay safe.
Choclette x
P.S. Please do let me know if you make any of my recipes and don't forget to star rate them. It really helps to make them more visible on search engines. I especially appreciate questions or feedback via comments on the blog posts. | 
No comments:
Post a Comment