Chocolate chestnut brownies
March 14, 2010
Last September, for my birthday, a friend gave me a little tin of that delicious French chestnut purée. I’m not usually one for leaving delights like that in the cupboard, but for some reason I hadn’t got round to using it.
So, this weekend, I was determined to come up with something chestnutty. Obviously, the perfect accompaniment to chestnuts is chocolate (well, it’s obvious to me), and, as I also had a bar of 100% pure cacao sitting around, I started searching my recipes for something that combined the two.
When it comes to baking, my first port of call is always Leith’s Baking Bible, and once again, it didn’t let me down. The recipe I actually found was for chocolate peanut butter brownies, but I thought the chestnut purée would be a perfectly workable substitute for the peanut butter.
Brownies always work best when they’re slightly undercooked, so they stay good and moist in the middle. If anything, the purée added to that moistness, and the resulting squares of chocolatey unctuousness really stick to the roof of your mouth – a surefire sign of a good brownie, in my books!
And the cupboard was bare… 
March 14, 2010 at 7:40 pm
ooh good call on the peanut butter substitution, they look delicious.
March 14, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Oh you are talking my kind of cooking here. I had a whole phase of making chocolate and chestnut goodies around Christmas, but didn’t come up with brownies – what a splendid idea.
March 14, 2010 at 9:48 pm
Mmmm what a lovely combination, I can almost feel that texture in the roof of my mouth now, I need a brownie pronto!
March 15, 2010 at 7:50 am
Must try some for my French friends. They love what the French pronounce as broonies. Very popular here.
March 15, 2010 at 9:46 am
Actually Choclette, it was looking at your recipes that reminded me I had a tin of chestnut purée in my cupboard! So, thanks for the inspiration.
March 16, 2010 at 11:56 am
I have a jar of sweetened chestnut puree bought on a whim months and months ago…love brownies too so will have to give these a go!