Chestnut Flour

Chestnut Flour is a tan-coloured, sweet tasting flour ground from chestnuts.

The chestnuts are dried for anywhere from 30 to 40 days, peeled, skinned (as the skin is bitter) then ground into a fine flour.

While Chestnut Flour has about the same amount of protein, fat and starch as does wheat flour, it doesn't develop gluten for use in bread. It is used in some European dessert recipes.

It is quite expensive, about $6.00 US for 1/2 pound / 225 g (2004 prices.) If the flour is fresh, it will smell of chestnuts. If there is no smell, then it is last year's flour and will have no taste, so it's not worth buying: at those prices, you want to make sure it has some taste. You can add small amounts to wheat-flour bread recipes, or make flat breads out of it.

Don't swap in more than 1/5 Chestnut Flour, as it weakens the dough of whatever you are making. That much will give you the flavour, without rendering what you are making just plain stodgy.Try Water Chestnut Flour.Per 25g (4 tablespoons): 90 calories, 1g protein, 1g fat, 20g carbohydrate, 10mg sodium

Causes flatulence.

1/4 cup = 4 tablespoons = 25g

The Romans used Chestnut Flour to make pasta from.

It was subsistence food for peasants during the Dark Ages and Middle Ages. Polenta could be made out of it. Now, it is an expensive gourmet item. If only our ancestors could see what we pay for it now.

Also called:

Water Chestnut Flour

Acorn Flour, Acorn Starch, Chestnut Flour, Nut Meals

French Flours, German Flours, Italian Flours, Potato Flour, Rice Flour, Rye Flour, Sorghum Flour, Wheat Flour