Marron Glacé

Once upon a time chestnuts were food for poor people during long and cold winter months...who could have imagined that we would eat chestnuts as a delicacies nowadays?! It is even very fashionable to prepare and consume each kind of special ingredients, seeds and grains, gluten free and vegan stuff.

I eat everything, I'm lucky, because I have no food allergy and I like practically all food. There are very few things that I don't eat, because I don't like it, but there are also a lot of things that I never tasted and I even never heard about them. But I still have time to discover them…I like to be fascinated by new flavours and tastes.

Every autumn Mr.M. and I, we like to go harvesting chestnuts in the forest. We wait all year long the right moment, when chestnuts are ripe and ready to be consumed. We collect them from the ground, they are neat and wet under the leaves. Sometime they fall directly from the tree and they are so perfect and they smell so good.

It’s strange that I started to prepare marron glacé only few years ago. Since I was a child my mother always prepared so many different cakes with chestnuts, but never marron glacé. So I’ve learned how to do it, also because Mr. M. adore it and I was very curious to discover how these rustic fruits become so charming candies.

Now I prepare them every year, it’s not the easiest thing to do, but the result is so tremendously good and their flavour is the pure concentrate of chestnuts.

Mr. M. is always helping peeling chestnuts, so we chat, we peel chestnuts, we eat some hmmmm ….. a lot of chestnuts and we spend nice and pleasant moments together. This is what I call pure and easy happiness!

Now I have almost finished all chestnuts, I have just few left for another tasty recipe and it will be over for this year. I think I will roast the very last ones, it will be quicker and much easier to do!

MARRON GLACE’

1 kg of chestnuts

1 kg of sugar

6 dcl of water

Put chestnuts into the casserole and cover them with cold water. Let them boil for 10 minutes and allow to cool down a bit. Peel the husk and the skin. Try not to break the chestnuts.

Prepare sugar syrup. Once the sugar has melted, let the syrup boil for 5 minutes, gently add chestnuts into syrup and let it boil on very low heat for another 10 minutes. Allow to cool down and leave it to rest for 12 hours. After that time let it boil for 1 minute and leave it to rest for 24 hours. Repeat same procedure for another 3 or 4 times. Chestnuts will absorb all syrup.

Put chestnuts on baking paper and let them dry in the oven at 60°C for few hours (chestnuts should become dry and smooth).

MARRON GLACE’

1 kg di castagne o marroni

1 kg di zucchero

6 dcl d’acqua

Far bollire le castagne in abbondante acqua per 10 minuti. Lasciare che si raffreddino un po’.  Pelare la buccia e la pellicina delle castagne facendo attenzione a non rompere i frutti.

Preparare lo sciroppo con lo zucchero. Una volta sciolto lo zucchero lasciare bollire lo sciroppo per 5 minuti, aggiungere gentilmente le castagne nello sciroppo e far bollire lo sciroppo a fuoco molto basso per altri 10 minuti. Far raffreddare e lasciare riposare per 12 ore. Trascorse le 12 ore far bollire lo sciroppo per 1 minuto e lasciare riposare per 24 ore. Ripetere questo passaggio per 3 o 4 volte. Le castagne assorbiranno tutto lo sciroppo.

Sistemare le castagne sulla carta da forno e farle asciugare nel forno caldo a 60°C per qualche ora (devono diventare asciutte e lisce).

MARRON GLACE’

1 kg kestena

1 kg šećera

6 dcl vode

Kuhati kesten u puno vode oko 10 minuta. Ostaviti da se kesten malo ohladi, pa ga oguliti. Odstraniti vanjsku ljusku i kožicu tako da kesten ostane cijel.

Pripremiti sirup od šećera. Kad se šećer otopi, ostaviti da vrije oko 5 minuta, potom lagano dodati kesten u sirup i ostaviti da vrlo lagano vrije još 10 minuta. Ostaviti da se ohladi i da miruje 12 sati. Ponovo zakuhati, neka vrije 1 minutu, pa neka miruje 24 sata. Ponoviti ovaj proces još 3 ili 4 puta da bi kesten upio sav sirup.

Poslagati kesten na pek-papir i sušiti ga par sati u pećnici na 60°C (kesten treba postati suh i gladak).