Three Chestnut Sweets for the Holidays
Chinese hybrid chestnuts are naturally sweet and starchy, which makes them a good base for desserts. These three recipes run from an easy party bake to a project that takes most of a week. All three start with cooked, peeled chestnuts.
Chestnut Pastry Swirls: about an hour
Cooked chestnuts are blended with cream cheese, cocoa, brown sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon into a spreadable filling. The filling is rolled into puff pastry, sliced into rounds, and baked at 350°F for about 15 minutes. Finish with powdered sugar.
This is the one to make for a crowd. One batch uses four sheets of pastry.
Get the recipe: Chestnut Pastry Swirls (Recipe courtesy of Chestnut Australia)
Turkish Chocolate-Covered Chestnuts (Káryoka): an afternoon
Boiled, peeled chestnuts are pureed with powdered sugar and a little cream into a soft dough, then rolled into chestnut-sized balls. Each one is dipped in dark chocolate and topped with ground pistachio. Allow time for the dough to rest and the chocolate to set.
Serve them in paper candy cups with coffee, or pack them in a box as a gift.
Get the recipe: Turkish Chocolate-Covered Chestnuts (Source: The Spruce Eats, Elizabeth Taviloglu)
Candied Chestnuts (Marrons Glacés): three to four days
Whole peeled chestnuts are boiled in vanilla syrup, then left to soak. The boil-and-soak cycle repeats three or four times until the nuts absorb all the syrup. A final hour drying in a warm oven firms the surface.
Marrons glacés are a classic European holiday gift. They keep in an airtight tin.
Before you start
Every recipe here begins with peeled chestnuts. Peel them while they are still warm; the skin loosens only while the nut is hot. Our peel-and-store guide covers boiling, roasting, and freezing peeled nuts ahead of time.
For the candied chestnuts, choose large or jumbo nuts, since they stay whole. For the swirls and káryoka, medium nuts are the practical choice because they are pureed. Current sizes are on our products page.