Chestnut Flour

part of: Chestnut

Chestnut flour is a fine, pale-tan flour with a distinctly sweet, nutty aroma. It’s naturally gluten-free and has been used for centuries in Italian and Corsican cooking, where chestnut trees were once so important they were called “the bread tree.”

The flour produces dense, moist baked goods with a characteristic sweetness that reduces the need for added sugar. It’s traditionally used in Italian castagnaccio (a flat chestnut cake), necci (chestnut crêpes), and various breads and pastas. In modern cooking, it works well blended with other flours in pancakes, cakes, and gnocchi.

Because of its high starch and sugar content relative to other nut flours, chestnut flour behaves quite differently from almond or coconut flour in baking. It absorbs more liquid and produces a denser crumb.

Wild & Farmed

photograph to come — from twenty years of markets, farms and kitchens

How it's made

Chestnuts are shelled, peeled to remove the bitter inner skin, and dried slowly — traditionally over wood smoke, though modern production often uses dehydrators. Once thoroughly dried, the chestnuts become hard and brittle and are ground into a fine flour. The drying step is critical: insufficient drying leads to a flour that clumps and spoils quickly due to the chestnut’s naturally high moisture and sugar content.

Nutrition (per 100g)

Energy 371kcal

Protein 5.3g

Carbs 71.8g

Fat 4.6g

Fibre 8.7g Sugar 0g

Mass Distribution

1 RACC is about 30 g — roughly 110 kcal of this.

What it costs the planet (per kilo)

Carbon ≈1.2kg

Freshwater ≈10335.2L

Land ≈32.7m²

≈ Estimated — worked out from a category-typical value further up its supply chain. Where this comes from →

Where it comes from

Made from

Chestnut, nut

In the kitchen

Used as

rustic italian baking flour

Goes well with

honey rosemary ricotta apple dark chocolate

Classic dishes

Castagnaccio
Chestnut Crepes
Necci

Where this data comes from

Nutrition data from

USDA

How it was calculated

Analytical (Atwater Imputation)

Full credits, licences, and methods: the sources page →

Your household's take

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