Chestnuts: not just for Christmas

Say the word "chestnuts" and, for many people, "roasting on an open fire" is probably the first thought that will come into their heads, evoking thoughts of winter nights, paper bags of the hot nuts bought from street vendors, and of course the traditional Christmas dinner, with chestnuts either in stuffings or tucked alongside the sprouts with crisp shards of bacon.

But why should we limit them just to the food of the festive season? While it's true that the nuts do come into season as the weather starts to get colder, surely there is a place for them on our tables at other times of year? It's easy enough to preserve them, after all, whether steeping them in sugar syrup to be consumed as the tooth-rottingly delicious treat that is marrons glacés, or simply pureeing them up and stucking them in a tin, as the gourmet merchants at Merchant Gourmet do.

You may recall that I tried their chestnut puree as part of my tin-based Christmas dinner in 2014, putting a layer of it in my turkey wellington, and mixing a dollop in with the tinned sprouts in an attempt to make them more palatable (it didn't). Apparently the company have now stopped selling it in tins, sadly switching to plastic pouches instead, which may be why, some time later, I came across a tin in the reduced section, even though it was still well in date. Having bought it but not got round to opening it at the end of last year, I started to look around for some less Christmassy uses for chestnuts. And lo and behold, if Merchant Gourmet's website didn't provide precisely that, with a recipe suitable for Easter - the world's second favourite Christian festival - Dulce de Leche and Chestnut Puree Hot Cross Buns.

I must admit, I was in two minds about the recipe at first. I am a massive fan of hot cross buns, but am generally of the opinion that the classic recipe shouldn't be meddled with too much. If it's a slight tweak of the fruits and spices, that's fine. I once had a stem ginger hot cross bun which was very good. Bramley apple hot cross buns? Just about ok. Earl Grey and Mandarin Hot Cross Buns? That's pushing it for my liking, Waitrose. Cherry Bakewell Hot Cross Buns? No. Mini Mocha Hot Cross Buns? Wrong. Toffee Fudge and Belgian Chocolate Hot Cross Buns? Stop it now, M&S. White Chocolate and Raspberry Hot Cross Buns? ABOMINATION. But Dulce de Leche and Chestnut Puree - could it work? It sounded unusual, certainly, but also the sort of combination you could imagine the supermarkets producing to appeal to their more food-savvy customers. The idea of them didn't immediately grate with me (largely as it didn't include chocolate, which I strongly feel has no place in a hot cross bun), and the more I thought about them, the more tempted I was. Not least as it would involve using two tinned products. Although Easter had already been and gone, I decided to give them a go.


The recipe specified one of Merchant Gourmet's new sachets of chestnut puree (but of course tinned was the only way forwards for me), and a jar of their own dulce de leche. A jar? Not on this blog, thanks. Why buy a jar of a product you can make yourself FROM A TIN? All you need to do is put an unopened tin of condensed milk into a pan of simmering water and leave it for a few hours, making sure it remains fully submerged, otherwise it can explode, apparently. On the side of the tin, Carnation actually advise against doing this, and now produce their own ready-made tinned Caramel, but where's the fun in that? No, it was the dangerous option all the way for me.

Three hours later, plus a bit of cooling time, I opened the tin to find a deliciously darkened goo inside, a thick, rich, deeply-flavoured caramel, but still with a hint of that characteristic condensed milk taste to it - good enough to eat straight from the tin. But the hot cross buns were calling, so I wisely stopped myself from polishing off too much of the stuff there and then.

The recipe was interesting in that it called for a quantity of the dulce de leche to be mixed into the yeasted dough itself, along with cinnamon, mixed dried fruit and peel, additional orange and lemon zest, and some grated apple. The dough was then left to prove until doubled in size, and then split into flat bun-size pieces. I should say that the yeast I was using was from a natty little tin as well, with its own little plastic lid to keep the yeast fresh after opening. So in fact that's three tins used for this recipe.

A second quantity of the caramel was then mixed with an equal amount of chestnut puree, spooned into the middle of the pieces of dough and the sides wrapped up around it to make bun shapes. This was far easier said than done, as the dough was very sticky, so it was quite difficult to shape them without making a bit of a mess, or at least ending up having to scrape a load of it off hands, utensils and the kitchen surfaces afterwards.

On a lightly greased baking tray, the buns then had a second prove before having their crosses piped on (a paste of flour, water and egg) and a final brush of egg yolk and milk before going into the oven.




After just 15 minutes at 220 degrees, they came out looking like this:

All but one of them had lost a bit of their filling, but that didn't really matter, as it just made for some extremely tasty chewy bits to nibble on - the cook's perk. The combined smell of spice, zest, yeasty bread and caramel was just wonderful, and they'd barely been out of the oven long enough for me to add a final glaze of marmalade (as I didn't have any apricot jam, as specified in the recipe) before I was tucking into one. But that's fine, as they're called hot cross buns, after all, so I felt completely justified in eating them while they were almost still too hot to handle.

The remaining filling in the middle of the buns wasn't as gooey as I had expected, having almost baked to a similar consistency to the bread itself. Its flavour was also a little masked by the strong zestiness and spiciness from the fruit and cinnamon (and that was having halved the quantity of the spice specified in the recipe, as half a tablespoon seemed like rather a lot for 6 buns). I could detect the caramel flavour of the dulce de leche, but the earthy 'chestnuttiness' was only really noticeable when I tried another bun later, warmed through, split in half and slathered with lots of extra leftover filling.

I had also had a bit of leftover paste for the crosses, which I'd baked alongside the buns. These scraps of bread were actually a better vehicle for the caramel-chestnut spread than the buns, being very neutral in flavour and therefore not upstaging the main event at all. Similarly, I found that I enjoyed the remaining buns more simply toasted with a little butter, rather than more of the filling. And yes, I did eat the rest of the buns all by myself - as the traditional song goes, "If you have no daughters, give them to your sons", but thankfully I don't have any children at all, so no need to share.

I am inclined to say therefore that as a spin on the classic hot cross bun, these didn't really cut it for me. While both the buns themselves and the filling were delicious, the two elements were definitely at their best when apart. It didn't, however, feel strange to be eating chestnuts in the spring - if anything, the recipe demonstrated what a delicate but versatile flavour they actually have, which I think would work alongside a much wider range of other ingredients than we would normally try them with.Which is just as well, as I still have a fair amount of the chestnut puree left to use up, so will be looking for more unusual or non-Christmassy ideas on the Merchant Gourmet website and further afield. Their Summer Chestnut Tiramisu recipe sounds like it might tick both boxes, about as far removed from "chestnuts roasting on an open fire" as you can get.

As for the dulce de leche, I have a reasonable amount of that left too, but I can see that getting used up much more quickly, possibly not in any recipes at all, but just whenever I happen to be passing the fridge with a spoon...