Crème de Marrons

& a big Christmas announcement!

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Before we get into today’s recipe, I have a very exciting festive announcement!! Over the past six (yes SIX) months I’ve been working on a recipe advent calendar. Starting on the 1st of December I will be sending out a festive recipe EVERY SINGLE DAY. All of the recipes will be things that are perfect for gifting, mostly biscuits but also a selection of truffles, confections and other delicious bits and bobs so that you can create the perfect edible gift box. I’ll make sure to include the shelf life of each bake so that you can plan your boxes accordingly. The recipes will range from simple to slightly more complicated, I’ve included variations where possible so you can make your bakes as simple or fancy as you like!

A preview of some of the things coming in the recipe advent.

The advent calendar is predominantly for paid subscribers so if you’re currently a free subscriber I’d really recommend upgrading your subscription, even if only for December, you’ll get over 24 recipes for just £5/$7 a month as well as access to the full archive as well as larger bakes and a gift guide. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s a bargain! I’d love to have you for some festive fun 🎄.

I also wanted to ask your opinion on whether you’d like to know what’s coming in the advent calendar or keep it as a surprise? I personally feel like a surprise would be fun but other people have said that it might be better in terms of planning to know what’s coming up.

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Alright, let’s get onto our recipe! It’s been ages since I’ve shared a jam/spread recipe so I thought this week I’d share a French classic, crème de marrons aka chestnut spread. This spread can be used the same way as Nutella, it’s slightly less sweet and has a very delicate flavour, it’s tricky to get your hands on outside of France and incredibly easy to make so if you’re a chestnut lover I’d definitely recommend giving this a go.

If you want, you can roast and peel your own chestnuts, for some reason I’m absolutely useless at this and can’t seem to get the skin off to save my life so I use the pre-peeled ones but just do whatever you fancy.

Crème de Marrons

Ingredients - Makes 2 jars

300g peeled chestnuts (I use the pre-peeled ones because I’m lazy)

120g golden caster sugar (or you can use 1/2 caster, 1/2 light brown)

150ml water

1 vanilla pod or 1tbsp vanilla paste

1/2tsp flakey salt

20g dark rum (optional)

Method

1. Roughly chop the chestnuts.

2. Scrape the seeds out of the vanilla pod and combine everything in a medium sized saucepan.

3. Bring the mixture to the boil.

4. Boil for 5 minutes until the chestnuts are tender and can be crushed with the back of a spoon..

   

5. Remove the vanilla pod, transfer to a food processor and blend, it will look quite wet to start with but it gets thicker as it blends.

6. Blend until completely smooth, this will take a while. I usually blend for about 5 minutes and then give my blender a break for half an hour or so to stop it from overheating. I repeat this process until it’s completely smooth. If necessary you can add slightly more water.

7. Store in the fridge for up to 4 weeks.

   

   It will look like the first image for ages, keep blending until it looks like the second.

Thank you so much for reading. If you’d like to support me, leaving a comment, liking or sharing this post, really helps me to grow my audience and get my work out there so that I can continue doing what I love!