Ice Cream & Hot Chocolate Treats - With Chestnuts!

Chestnuts are synonomous with autumn and winter. As a food the chestnut is surprisingly versatile and you will find it used in both sweet and savoury recipes - from pie recipes (usually with pork, venison and duck) and soup recipes to dessert recipes such as chestnut cheesecake and even bread recipes.

Christmas is an ideal time to offer some chestnut based fare for your friends and family. Here are a couple of ideas you might like to try ....

Chestnut ice cream - it's quite a simple recipe without eggs and produces a sweet, nutty ice cream.

Chestnut hot chocolate - this is courtesy of my friend Emma who runs a great little English coffee shop. She came up with the Halloween hot chocolate I told you about recently. Her chestnut hot chocolate is a quality hot chocolate with a special chestnut flavouring, decorated with powdered chocolate. Thanks to Emma for sharing this super photo with us.

Want to explore chestnut foods further? Well, here are a couple of suggestions ....

1. A page of really interesting chestnut recipes which I came across on the web - I have yet to try any but they certainly look appetizing!

2. The Chestnut Growers of America website which has some fantastic information about chestnuts and includes a recipes section.

Lots of great reasons to make yours a chestnut Christmas this year!