Chestnut Ginger Biscuits

How often do I complain that there isn't enough ginger in a recipe? It's probably more than 50% of the time, with recipes where ginger is supposed to be the main flavor. No such problem with this biscuit recipe from Dan Lepard, which used six teaspoons of ground ginger - the flavour was so fierce there was an afterburn (in a very good way!).

I had no problems with following the recipe; the only change I made was to use all treacle instead of part golden syrup. This was suggested as an alternative, to increase the liquorice-ness of the treacle flavour. I chilled the soft dough for about 3 hours before forming it into balls - which I did using scales to ensure uniformity. If my memory is correct, I got 25 biscuits out of the dough, and after baking they stayed soft like cookies rather than being crisp like gingernuts. I'd been expecting them to be crisp, so this was a surprise, but not really a disappointment.

There wasn't much to complain about with these delicious biscuits, although my husband suggested they would be better without being rolled in sugar. Once again, I felt that the chestnut flour was overwhelmed by the other flavours in the recipe; treacle, ginger and ground cloves all have unique and striking flavours. After my past experiences it wasn't a surprise that I couldn't distinguish the flavour of the chestnut flour, but I had just a little left to use up so thought the recipe worth trying. (I'm really talking myself into not buying chestnut flour again, unless someone can recommend a recipe where it can be tasted!)

PS - the second attempt at the Spelt, Lemon and Maple Drizzle Cake wasn't any better than the first. I managed to find white spelt flour and added half a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda to the batter, but the cake still sank, this time even before the cooking time was up. Two attempts is enough - there are plenty of other cake recipes out there!

Chestnut Flour Brownies - 2

gluten- and dairy-free.

After my earlier, not entirely successful, experimentation with chestnut flour (see previous post), I looked back over all my brownie recipes to see which one might be best adapted to use chestnut flour in place of flour containing gluten. I soon found this Diana Henry recipe for brownies made with rye flour, which is lower in gluten than wheat flour. This made me think the recipe might work as well with a gluten-free flour, so I tried a straight swap of flours, using chestnut flour instead of rye, and also added 3 chopped marrons glacé instead of the nuts suggested (you could add more, but they are very expensive!). I also used a hard dairy-free baking fat (eg Stork) instead of butter, as I was still trying to make the brownies both gluten- and dairy-free

The batter was a lot stiffer than I remembered it being in the original recipe, and really difficult to spread, so I was worried that the brownies might be too solid. However, the baked brownies were fine - quite delicious, in fact. They were dense, chewy and fudgy - everything a good brownie should be. They also tasted as if they had a lot more chocolate in them than they actually did, but without being too rich, as in my last recipe. The little pieces of candied chestnuts added an extra dimension to both the flavour and the texture.

I suspected that the stiff batter was down to the chestnut flour absorbing more moisture than rye flour, although none of the baking recipes using chestnut flour that I've looked at suggest that any adjustment is necessary. So I tried the recipe for a second time, adding 2 tablespoons of water to the batter, which made it easier to spread in the tin, but also made the brownies a little less fudgy and added a few minutes to the baking time.

My only slight disappointment with both batches of chestnut brownies was that I didn't really pick up any flavour components that I could attribute to the chestnut flour. Yes, the brownies were delicious, but would they have been any less delicious if made with spelt or rye flour? As chestnut flour is so expensive, I don't think it's something that I'll bother to keep in stock, unless I find a recipe which showcases it's flavour.

I'm sending these brownies to Choclette's 'We Should Cocoa' link-up for December, over at Tin and Thyme. Chocolate is always associated with Christmas, but adding chestnuts to these brownies makes them even more seasonal.

Chestnut Flour Brownies - 1

gluten- and dairy-free

Chestnut flour is something that I've been meaning to try for a long time, but I've only ever seen it for sale online, where minimum order charges or postage charges haven't made it economical. So when we were on holiday in Italy in September, and found ourselves passing a wholefood supermarket I had to see if they had any. I think I probably paid as much per kg as I would have in this country, but I got organic flour, and didn't have to buy anything extra to make up an order.

Once I'd got the flour, I decided to keep it for Christmas baking, but couldn't resist trying these brownies from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, which only needed 40g of flour, when I wanted to try something different in the way of gluten- and dairy- free baking. I had to adapt the recipe to make it dairy-free, and to allow for the fact that I only had 70% plain chocolate available, but Celia's recipe was certainly the inspiration. In this post Celia warns of the pitfalls of trying to use chocolate with too high a percentage of cocoa solids in this recipe, so although I didn't have any problems, you might want to stick to the original recipe.

Ingredients
100g hard dairy-free baking fat - I used Stork
200g 70% plain chocolate
175g light muscovado sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
40g chestnut flour
130g 70% plain chocolate, chopped coarsely

NB - check that the chocolate is dairy-free if this factor is important.

Method
Preheat the oven to 170C and line a 20cm (8") square brownie tin.
Melt the chocolate and baking fat together in a bowl, over a pan of simmering water, then remove from the heat and stir in the vanilla extract and sugar.
Cool, if necessary, until the mixture is only lukewarm, then beat in the eggs, one at a time.
Sift in the flour and stir vigourously until  the flour is incorporated and the mixture 'snaps' (as Celia describes it). This is the point at which the texture of the batter stiffens and comes cleanly away from the sides of the mixing bowl.
Fold in the chopped chocolate, transfer the batter to the baking tin, spread evenly and bake for 25 minutes until just form.
Cool completely in the tin before cutting into pieces. I recommend small pieces, as these brownies are very, very rich. The pieces in the photographs were only about 2.5cm square!

I'm usually reluctant to use non-dairy fats in place of butter, but in this recipe the chocolate hit was so powerful that any adverse flavour from the Stork baking fat was completely masked. I very rarely say things like this, but I think this recipe made something that was too rich to be thought of as a brownie. Even after cutting into tiny squares, it was difficult to eat more than one - it was like eating semi-solid chocolate, not any sort of cake. We had to eat the brownies as an after-dinner chocolate treat rather than a dessert. They were absolutely delicious, but not what I was looking for in terms of a gluten- and dairy-free dessert.