栗どら焼き Japanese mini pancakes with Sweet Chestnut Puree filling

It was such fun to make chestnut puree from the sweet chestnuts that I collected from the local woods. Although it was a bit of an effort to make smooth puree it was absolutely worth it.
So, I was wondering what else I could make with my lovely chestnut puree apart from Mont Blanc.
This year, I made dairy-free puree, so it's basically Japanese 栗あん (kiri-ann)or 栗きんとん(kuru-kinton) after all. Why not make a little 栗どら焼き for fun. どら焼き are mini pancakes with aduki puree filling. But chestnut puree filling is also very popular especially in autumn in Japan. It's a seasonal treat.  They are lovely little things to eat with some Japanese green tea.

Ingredients for mini pancakes (about 20 pancakes)

• 1 cup self raising flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil

Method

1. Put all the ingredients in a jug and mix well.
2. Heat the frying pan with a little oil and make mini pancakes.
3. Cool the pancakes on the rack.
4. When they are cooled, sandwich the 2 pancakes with the chestnut puree filling.

Please see the recipe for making sweet chestnut puree on the "Mini Mont Blanc" post. 

Mini Mont Blanc

I love Autumn.
Put my wellington boots on and find treasures in the woods.
The sweet chestnuts that what I was after.  Crunch, crunch... stamping the autumn leaves and going further in the woods to find the treasures.
I'm so lucky to live near such a beautiful nature reserve and yet be so close to London.
Once again, I managed to make the beautifully smooth chestnut puree and made "Petits Mont Blancs" Chestnut puree and cream on the Meringue nest.
Chestnuts are very popular in savoury dishes in the UK, but you won't be disappointed with this sweet treat.

Making Sweet Chestnut Puree 

1. Cut a cross in the chestnut shell.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 200C and place a roasting dish or oven tray inside. 

3. Pop the chestnuts into a saucepan of water and bring it up to the boil. 
4. Once it is boiling, start your timer for 2 
minutes. At the end of that time, drain the water off the chestnuts and tip the still steaming chestnuts onto the hot 
oven tray in the oven. 

5. Leave the chestnuts in the oven for 7 minutes.
6. While the nuts are roasting, prepare a large bowl and put a tea towel inside the bowl. 

7. Toss the nuts inside the tea towel in the bowl. This will keep the nuts warm as you peel them. 
It’s easier to peel them when they are warm.
8. Pull one nut out at a time from under the towel and pull the shell and fluffy inner skin away from the kernel. 
Keep going until you’re all done. 
If you are making puree, the shape of the chestnut doesn’t matter. So, use a teaspoon and scoop out the flesh.

The hard work is done. Now the next bit is much easier.  

For chestnut puree, you will need;

• 400g chestnuts (unshelled weight)
• 200g sugar

• enough water to cover the chestnuts in the sauce pan
• 1 vanilla bean (or 1 tsp Vanilla paste)

Method:

1. Chop the chestnuts roughly then place in a saucepan with sugar, vanilla and just enough water to cover the chestnuts. Bring to a simmer so 
that all the sugar dissolves and continue to heat for about 20 minutes. 

2. Remove the vanilla bean. Blitz the chestnuts with a hand blender until they become a smooth paste.

Making 9 meringues 

•   3 medium egg whites (at room temperature)   
•   1 tsp of lemon juice 

•   170 g (6oz) caster sugar 

•   1 tsp cornflour 

** Please see my Easy Mini Meringue recipe for more meringues.

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 130°C, (fan 110°C). Using an 8cm (3 ¼ in) Mark out 9 circles on a baking parchment.
2. Get a really clean medium sized bowl. If it is not spotlessly clean, it will mean that the egg whites don’t whip up properly.
3. Tip the egg whites into the bowl, squeeze the lemon juice in and then whisk them to a medium peak. To test, lift the whisk out of the meringue with some of the white foam on the end.
4. Next add a spoonful of the sugar to the meringue and whisk really hard until all of the sugar has ‘dissolved’ and the mixture starts to look a bit shiny. Then add the remaining sugar gradually, while whisking all the time, until the mixture becomes really shiny and very stiff.
5. If you perform the whisk trick at this time, the peak will be almost straight up in the air.
6. Finally, whisk in the cornflour for a second or two until smooth. This gives the meringue a marshmallow texture inside with a crisp outside.
7. You can then dollop blobs of the mixture onto each of the 9 circles on the paper and spread each one out to the circle edge with the back of a spoon. You could use a star nozzle in a piping bag and fill it with the meringue mixture. Then, starting in the centre of each circle, holding the piping bag vertically and squeezing it gently as you go, go round and round until the entire circle is filled to give a pretty flat rose shape. When you come to the end of the rose shape, keep the bag moving but stop squeezing it. This will give a neat ‘end’ to the rose. Repeat with the rest of the mix.
8. Bake in the oven for at least 40 minutes. Cool in the oven with the door ajar.   I leave them in the oven for a couple of hours to cool them completely. (If your meringues crack or became too brown, just turn the oven down by 10°C or so.) Once the meringues are ready, remove them from the oven. 

Now, finally the fun bits.

Assemble the meringues with the chestnut puree and fresh whipped cream.

Enjoy!

 

Here is the cupcake version of Mini Mont Blanc.

Sweet Chestnut Swiss Roll

This Autumn seems to be a very good year for sweet chestnuts. Well, at least our local woods, Ruislip woods, have provided a lot of really good quality sweet chestnuts this year.

Collecting chestnuts is fun and we got so many. I made 2 jam jars and one ice cream tub of chestnut puree. So, I have been trying to be clever using the lovely creamy sweet chestnut puree.

Here is one of my successful attempts to enjoy this Autumn flavour. 

I spread too much puree on the sponge and, unfortunately, I could not Swiss-roll it. 

Can I still call it "Swiss roll"?

Well, let say it's "Ruislip roll." 

Ingredients:

For the Sponge

• 3 eggs
• 75g caster sugar
• 75g self-raising flour

For the Sweet Chestnut Puree

Click here for the recipe

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Grease and line a 23cm x 30cm/9in x 12in Swiss roll tin.
2. Whisk the eggs and sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy. 

3. Fold in the flour and spoon the mixture into the tin. Bake in the oven 
for 7-10 minutes, or until light and springy to the touch. 

4. Remove from the oven and turn the sponge out onto another piece of greaseproof paper. 

5. For the filling, spread the sweet chestnut puree (click for the recipe) onto the sponge, leaving a small gap around the edges. 

6. Roll the sponge. 

7. Dust with icing sugar and serve. 

Mount Blanc cupcakes

"Mount Blanc" cake was one of my favourite cakes when I was little.
My mum wasn't a baker, so she got these beauties from the local bakery.
So, this reminds me of my childhood.
I leant that the French make "Mont Blanc" with meringue. But my Japanese version of Mont Blanc uses very soft sponge cake as a base rather than meringue. 
When you cut this little Mont Blanc, you will see the fresh cream inside. What a treat. :)

Sponge base (for 10 cupcakes)

• 2 eggs
• 35g sugar
• 30g Self raising (or 30g plain flour + ½ tsp BP)
• 5g cocoa powder (optional, if you would like to make chocolate sponge)

Method:

1. Whisk the eggs with a hand mixer until very fluffy and pale in colour.
2. Keep whisking and add sugar in three batches.
3. Add sifted flour all at once and gently fold with a spatula to combine the egg mixture and flour. Do not over mix.  You need to keep the air in the mixture.
4. Pour the mixture into the muffin cases.
5. Bake them in a preheated oven at 170c for 15-20 minutes.
6. Cool them completely before decorating.
7. Make sugar syrup with 3 tsp sugar, 2 tsp water  and 1 tsp rum.
8. Brush the sugar syrup on top of each cake.

Now, the cupcakes are ready to be decorated.

You'll need whipped double cream and sweet chestnut puree. (Click here for the recipe)

1. Place a mound of whipped cream in the middle of each cake.
2. Mix the chestnut puree with 1 tsp of rum and put it in a piping bag.
3. Pipe the chestnut puree around the mound of whipped cream to create a “Mount Blanc” effect.

Sweet Chestnut Puree

Harvest time. :)
We are lucky that there is a "secret wood" where we can find a lot of lovely sweet chestnuts every Autumn. Another great harvest this year.
Sweet chestnuts are commonly used in savoury dishes in the UK, but for me, sweet chestnuts should be for "sweet" treats.  So, I made sweet chestnut puree. Yes, "sweet" sweet chestnut puree.
First, the shell needs to be removed. That's the hard bit.
Here is the way I did it.

1. Cut a cross in the chestnut shell.
2. Pre-heat your oven to 200C and place a roasting dish or oven tray inside. 

3. Pop the chestnuts into a saucepan of water and bring it up to the boil. 
4. Once it is boiling, start your timer for 2 
minutes. At the end of that time, drain the water off the chestnuts and tip the still steaming chestnuts onto the hot 
oven tray in the oven. 

5. Leave the chestnuts in the oven for 7 minutes.
6. While the nuts are roasting, prepare a large bowl and put a tea towel inside the bowl. 

7. Toss the nuts inside the tea towel in the bowl. This will keep the nuts warm as you peel them. 
It’s easier to peel them when they are warm.
8. Pull one nut out at a time from under the towel and pull the shell and fluffy inner skin away from the kernel. 
Keep going until you’re all done. 
If you are making puree, the shape of the chestnut doesn’t matter. So, use a teaspoon and scoop out the flesh.

Now the next bit is much easier.  

For chestnut puree, you will need;

• 300g chestnuts (unshelled weight)
• 300ml milk

• 200g sugar

• 1 vanilla bean (or 1 tsp Vanilla paste)

Method:

1. Chop the chestnuts roughly then place in a saucepan with the milk, sugar and vanilla. Bring to a simmer so 
that all the sugar dissolves and continue to heat for about 20 minutes so that the chestnuts have a chance to 
absorb some of the milk. 

2. Remove the vanilla bean. Pour the remaining ingredients into a blender (be careful! It will be hot!) then blend 
until it forms a thick liquid. 

3. Return the liquid back to the saucepan and heat, stirring continuously until it thickens and forms a bubbling 
paste. Let the chestnut puree cool before using it.

 

Now this lovely "sweet Chestnut Puree" is ready to be used for sweet treats.

I made "Mount Blanc cupcakes." I guess it's a Japanese-French fusion style of cake. 
Click here for the recipe.

... or you could make some little "Chestnut Truffles."
Simply, mix leftover cake crumbs and the chestnut puree together.
Roll into small balls and roll in cocoa powder. That's it. Enjoy.