Making Chestnut Flour with Giannetti Artisans
Giannetti Artisans Chestnut Flour is ready for shipment in December of every year – just in time for your holiday baking.
Chestnut flour is a spectacular, simple, yet relatively unknown flour. It is produced in many regions throughout Italy, and is a product made from chestnuts that have been dried and crushed. Chestnuts have a very unique taste, and when put through a traditional stone milling process, retain a mild, creamy texture when cooked.
The traditional process of making chestnut flour takes approximately 40 days. Chestnuts are slowly dried and gently roasted in a metato, a traditional stone drying house used by Italian farmers (contadini), before being finely ground into flour.
Chestnuts are a great source of many nutrients. These include carbohydrates, fiber, B vitamins, and minerals such as copper, magnesium, phosphorus, and potassium. Chestnuts are a good source of both soluble and insoluble fiber. Chestnuts contain high amounts of resistant starch, which is a type of starch that humans cannot digest. Resistant starch is thought to possibly protect against colon cancer by altering the way bacteria in the colon ferment carbohydrates. Chestnut flour is used to make the traditional Italian “polenta”, which has been a staple of the Italian diet for centuries. The flour is milled from whole chestnuts and is gluten-free and does not contain any additives or preservatives.
Check out this video on Making Chestnut Flour in Tuscany, Italy using ancient traditional methods.
(Video is in Italian).