Here’s some we did yesterday:
First preheat your oven to 200°C if it’s a fan oven (higher if not), or 400°F or gas mark 6.
Then rinse the chestnuts, trim off the stem, and cut a cross in the outer skin. If you don’t slit the skin they will explode in the oven.
Get a grown-up to help you with this because it’s quite fiddly and needs a sharp knife. We don’t want any fingers getting sliced!
When you’ve done that you can put your nuts on a baking tray or dish …
We only collected a few yesterday because we’d never tried them before and didn’t want to waste too many if we didn’t like them. Of course you may deduce now that we did like them!
Bung them in the oven and roast them until the skin peels open which should take around half an hour.
While they are warm, peel off the outer brown skin and the inner paler skin …
And you’ll be left with a beautiful, soft, creamy-coloured nut which is absolutely delicious:
Yum!
Happy foraging 
Violet's Vegan Comics 
Very informative!! My nieces would love this post! Thanks for sharing it.
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My pleasure 😀
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Thank you for liking “Post A Quote Challenge: Day 3.” I enjoyed this post because I learned something new from it. I did not know that there are two types of chestnuts and that horse chestnuts are poisonous. I am glad to know this information in case I ever come across some wild chestnut trees in the future.
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You’re welcome, and we’re also glad you liked this one, thank you for telling us 😀
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You are welcome too. I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend. 🙂
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Thank you, you too 🙂
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🙂
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What an adorable post! I loved it! I also learned lots of new stuff. Like I didn’t know chestnuts had that hard spiky shell. Yikes! I didn’t know you could bake them either or that they grew in trees (I thought bush for sure). Thanks for teaching me something new today and in such a fun colorful way. 😀
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Ha ha 😀 thank you so much, glad you enjoyed it 😀
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Vonderful!!!!! back home we use to eat them and drink grape juice.
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Oo I want to try that! Thank you!
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Thanks for teaching me about chestnuts, Babs! I’m pretty sure we don’t have those out here, as trees in general are hard to come by, but just the reminder to forage is a good one 🙂
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Excellent! Thank you very much, I will pass your message on to Babs 🙂
That’s a shame about your trees – everybody needs trees.
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I like eating chestnuts and now I know more about them.
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🙂
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love it- thank you Violet ( and Babs of course) for making the educational things so much fun!x
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Thank you so much, so glad you liked it – Babs will be delighted 😉
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Love chestnuts, they are great mixed in with brussel sprouts!
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Yuck! I hate brussel sprouts! 😀
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In that case, forget that idea!!! Maybe with some greens or kale and onions instead
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Ok, now you’re talkin’! 😉
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I love chestnuts. Good to know about slitting the skin. I would have a July 4th fireworks in my oven.
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😀
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MMMMMM …. tasty chestnuts 😀 We buy them at Christmas to roast but you are so lucky to be able to forage full size sweet chestnuts 🙂 We collected some of the small ones we find in the woods near us but sadly they didn’t really work out for cooking. Sweet chestnut cases are very spiky aren’t they. I love the colours of the sweet chestnut leaves in Autumn too.
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We are lucky. I’d never seen them in any of the places we’d lived before, but there’s loads round here 🙂
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Yay, Babs is back! My dad made us roast chestnuts once in the fireplace. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. 🙂 I haven’t noticed any sweet chestnut trees round here, I must keep my eyes peeled.
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I haven’t seen them in places we’ve lived before either but there’s loads here in East Sussex. Where are you?
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The rural West of Ireland surrounded by farmland. Lots of sycamore, hawthorn, blackthorn and elder. I keep meaning to do something with the elder but haven’t got round to it yet.
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Oh yes, we were thinking the same thing and never got round to it. I did make some elderberry jam years ago but it came out really solid and proved very difficult to get a knife into! If I do it again it’ll definitely have to be mixed with another fruit 🙂
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I’ve had that problem with blackberries (or it could have been blackcurrants, I forget). I put apples in for extra pectin but there was too much and it set solid. 🙂 The next year I over-compensated and ended up with sauce. I should really follow a recipe I think. 🙂
I’d love to have a go at elderflower cordial. I like the shop-bought stuff so homemade should be yummy.
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Oh, yes, home made is always better. I don’t think I’ve tried elderflower cordial – let me know how you get on 🙂
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I will. 🙂
It’s especially nice carbonated. They sell it as Elderflower Champagne. Really yummy and refreshing. It has a very distinctive taste.
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Interesting. How will you carbonate it?
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I guess I will have to buy some soda water to dilute the cordial with. But I’ll wait to see if the cordial is any good first. It might be yummy enough without bubbles. 🙂
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Oh yes, try it first – soda water is yuck!!!! I love the idea of making a drink out of flowers 🙂
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My friend makes a drink out of meadowsweet flowers which is quite nice. I want to try making that too.
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I’m loving this idea! Keep me posted 🙂
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Will do!
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I love this, wonderful! I am a fan of Babs going foraging and getting down with nature!
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Thank you 🙂
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COol idea VV. 🙂
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😀
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Go Babs, lol! 🙂
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😀
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Ah, my childhood favourite!. Very helpful to see the difference.!
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🙂
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Oh, this made me laugh!!! 🙂 🙂 I am enjoying myself so much now!! 🙂 Hihihihihi!! 🙂 I love love love your Barbie comic!! 🙂 I wish I could do that, I mean make a photo-comic like that, I would have loooooooved it!! 🙂 🙂 Thank you for making my day a little more smiley! 😀
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Ha ha ha 😀 I’m so happy it made you so happy Trini 😀 you should totally make your own photo comic – it’s so easy and such fun. Just photograph a toy character in whatever situation you want and then open the photos in ‘Paint’ and add speech bubbles. Easy! Go on – just enjoy yourself! 😀
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Thank you for teaching me that!! 🙂 Yaaay! 🙂 I want to try! 🙂 My camera is broken, but as soon as it is fixed I will try it! 🙂 I am so much looking forward to that! 🙂
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Excellent! Make sure you show us 🙂
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I will! 🙂
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