A Winter bread

[Wandering Bob]

Winter Bread (17) aka 'Pane di Principessa', 11 January 2019

More thoughts on this. It's surprising just how little chestnut flour is needed to flavour a loaf. The background chestnut flavour works so well with the pumpkin seeds too.

This is cracking bread - fine for breakfast with (so far) honey, apricot jam or orange marmalade, great at lunchtime - with (so far) salami, cheese or garlic sausage, and in the evenings it's good with vegetable soup, and just perfect with a mature tomme de savoie that I picked up recently. I've also spread it with EVOO and eaten it with tomatoes and black olives as a starter.

I made it again today (but without the frosty top)

 

[MypinchofItaly]

Winter Bread (17) aka 'Pane di Principessa', 11 January 2019

More thoughts on this. It's surprising just how little chestnut flour is needed to flavour a loaf. The background chestnut flavour works so well with the pumpkin seeds too.

This is cracking bread - fine for breakfast with (so far) honey, apricot jam or orange marmalade, great at lunchtime - with (so far) salami, cheese or garlic sausage, and in the evenings it's good with vegetable soup, and just perfect with a mature tomme de savoie that I picked up recently. I've also spread it with EVOO and eaten it with tomatoes and black olives as a starter.

I made it again today (but without the frosty top)


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I'm really stunned by your methodicalness. And great results as usual. Have you ever thought of bread with whole chestnuts or walnuts or even only with olives (the green ones) ?

 

[Wandering Bob]

I'm really stunned by your methodicalness. And great results as usual. Have you ever thought of bread with whole chestnuts or walnuts or even only with olives (the green ones) ?

Thank you for your kind comments.

I don't particularly like walnuts - I let the squirrels have mine (there's a big walnut tree behind my house). I don't mind walnuts occasionally … I'm sure I'd like them in castagnaccio, for instance, and I used to toast them with pine nuts as an addition to a millet pilav, but I don't think I'd enjoy them in bread.

I have made olive bread in the past - 20/25 years ago, using black olives - and it wasn't very good bread. Last summer a friend was telling me about a wonderful green olive bread (made in part with sarrasin) that she used to eat in Amsterdam. I researched this, found a Paul Hollywood recipe that would work, bought a jar of green olives … and then dropped the idea for some reason. It's a bread that I should make - and will make soon: thanks for the suggestion.

Bread with whole chestnuts? If I could source chestnuts then I'd have a go at it … I might be a bit late this year, perhaps Oct/Nov would have been the time to try and buy them. Back in the '80s I remember buying dried chestnuts - I guess they could be re-constituted in order to make bread. But I haven't seen dried chestnuts in 30 years. Perhaps you can buy them in tins? I'll ask around.

 

[MypinchofItaly]

Thank you for your kind comments.

I don't particularly like walnuts - I let the squirrels have mine (there's a big walnut tree behind my house). I don't mind walnuts occasionally … I'm sure I'd like them in castagnaccio, for instance, and I used to toast them with pine nuts as an addition to a millet pilav, but I don't think I'd enjoy them in bread.

I have made olive bread in the past - 20/25 years ago, using black olives - and it wasn't very good bread. Last summer a friend was telling me about a wonderful green olive bread (made in part with sarrasin) that she used to eat in Amsterdam. I researched this, found a Paul Hollywood recipe that would work, bought a jar of green olives … and then dropped the idea for some reason. It's a bread that I should make - and will make soon: thanks for the suggestion.

Bread with whole chestnuts? If I could source chestnuts then I'd have a go at it … I might be a bit late this year, perhaps Oct/Nov would have been the time to try and buy them. Back in the '80s I remember buying dried chestnuts - I guess they could be re-constituted in order to make bread. But I haven't seen dried chestnuts in 30 years. Perhaps you can buy them in tins? I'll ask around.

Blimey, I have not even guessed a suggestion I gave you. Of course, for the chestnuts it's a little late (although here in Italy there are still some who sell them and they are rather fat and tasty), but I think they are still in the tins. It would not be bad. And the green olives bread, well, something for which I could make false papers.

 

[Sue Veed]

A truly inspirational thread! Chestnuts are a Big Thing in Corsica and Madeira - probably parts of northern Italy too. Having thoroughly enjoyed some small chestnut loaves - barely larger than decent-sized rolls - bought at a Christmas street market in Funchal two years ago, my partner insisted that I try to replicate them. I couldn't find any chestnut flour in the local supermarkets, and lacked the confidence and fluency in Portuguese to try in any smaller shops.
Undaunted, and pestered, on returning to Nottingham I experimented with Merchant Gourmet chestnut puree , which is 60% chestnuts, 40% water. After a couple of goes, I achieved results which were better than just edible, and started to approach the goal. Unfortunately, I was keeping notes of my developing recipe on a scrap of paper, which disappeared during one of her occasional tidying sessions. From memory, I think I was using about 85% strong wholemeal flour and no more than 15% chestnut puree, with a hefty dose of muscovado sugar for added flavour. It might have been more complex than that, but without the notes.... .

 

[Wandering Bob]

Undaunted, and pestered, on returning to Nottingham I experimented with Merchant Gourmet chestnut puree , which is 60% chestnuts, 40% water. After a couple of goes, I achieved results which were better than just edible, and started to approach the goal. Unfortunately, I was keeping notes of my developing recipe on a scrap of paper, which disappeared during one of her occasional tidying sessions. From memory, I think I was using about 85% strong wholemeal flour and no more than 15% chestnut puree, with a hefty dose of muscovado sugar for added flavour. It might have been more complex than that, but without the notes

Thank you for your kind comments, and thank you too for the idea of using chestnut purée. That's a great suggestion and one that I hadn't considered. I still have plenty of chestnut flour but once that's gone, I'll have a go with the purée.

It's possible to make your own chestnut flour if you can find enough chestnuts. See here:

https://www.cookingbites.com/threads/how-to-make-your-own-chestnut-flour.14065/