Chestnut Cream Cookies - Pastatelle ___

Chestnut Cream Cookies - Pastatelle

Ingredients

For the Cream:

  • 1 pound chestnut paste or chestnut flour
  • 6 ounces dark chocolate
  • 4 ounces honey
  • 1 orange, zest only
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 1 tablespoon cocoa powder - unsweetened

For the Dough:

  • 3 large eggs
  • 0.5 cup sugar
  • 0.25 cup olive oil
  • 1 teasponn vanilla powder
  • pinch of baking powder
  • 2.5 cups all purpose flour
  • olive oil for frying

Directions

Make the Dough:

  1. In a large bowl, beat the eggs and add the olive oil, vanilla powder and  baking powder. Mix well.
  2. Add the sugar and mix well.
  3. Little by little add the flour and let it absorb all the liquids.
  4. Move the dough to a wood board and continue to knead until it forms a uniform ball.
  5. Enclose the dough in plastic paper and let it rest for about 20 mins.
  6. Re-work the dough once again and let it rest for another 15 mins.

Make the Chestnut Cream:

  1. If you are using fresh Chestnuts, first boil them and once they are cooked, remove the paste from all of them and put it in a food processor to get a smooth paste. Otherwise, you can use Chestnut flour.
  2. In a pan, add the dark chocolate, honey, orange zest and the cacao.
  3. On low flame let the chocolate melt and mix with all the ingredients.
  4. Add the chestnuts and mix well until you have a firm cream.
  5. Let it cool.

Make the Pastatelle:

  1. Cut a piece of dough and flatten it with a rollinh pin.  Make the dough very thin.
  2. Place a Tsp of Chestnut Cream on the dough and cover it with another layer of dough as if you were making a raviolo.
  3. Press the dough down to remove the air from inside the cookie and with a large shot glass or a ravioli stamp cut out the cookie from the dough.
  4. Make all your cookies.
  5. Once they are all made, they can be either baked at 350F for 20 mins. or they can be deep fried.
  6. Serve with powder sugar on top.