Let’s Make Downbread

Bet you haven’t. But I can see the hordes rushing to the speciality stores to get themselves a loaf or two… Or, perhaps not.

I am not personally all that familiar with the term “downbread”, but then, unlike Dr Who, I was never near the 16th  century, or even before.

In 1590 a guy called Thomas Harriot said of the locals (‘Red Indians’ a.k.a Native Americans) in North Carolina, (the spelling is correct): “Chestnvts there are in diuers places great store: some they vse to eate rawe, some they stamp and boil to make spoonmeate, and with some being sodden they make such a manner of downbread as they vse their beanes.”

Apparently, because there is no gluten, bread made entirely of chestnut flour does not rise like wheat flour, and was referred to as “downbread” in earlier centuries.

Although I have no intention of making downbread, but having a small stash of chestnuts (actually, to be more accurate a very tiny stash – oK, in fact a couple of nuts) but I thought some readers may be interested, just in case…

(Above): We ended up with a very small crop of fertile nuts for the 2013/2014 season as there is only one tree which apparently results in infertile nuts. We got tons of threesomes instead of the correct pairs in the pods.

Chestnut flour costs approx $25US. To import it will naturally depend on freight and duties, so you can see that it certainly ain’t cheap. To make chestnut flour, I suspect that you probably need a bushel or two, so you’ll need a few trees.

Either cut a slit in the chestnuts or cut them in half. Place them on a pan and put into the oven to roast until the shells will peel away easily (about 40-45 minutes). Remove the shells and the papery covering (pellicle) and let them cool. Freeze the nuts for about 45 minutes. Grind the frozen chestnuts until you reach a meal-like consistency. Store the flour in an airtight container, preferably in the freezer. To make the flour in a historic setting, or in the absence of a power source, a mortar and pestle should work well.

I only came across these instructions after I’d completed my boiling, so there. Here is what I did:

Step 1: Select sufficient healthy raw chestnuts for processing. Say about 4 kilos. I didn’t have the luxury of following any selection process. Just a handful or two. Something tells me we will not be able to make downbread – not even half a downbun, really.

As an aside, do you suppose the early population in America were into buns? Like over the weekends, maybe? Did they like downtoast? I can’t find any references…

(Above) Step 2: Using a breadknife, cut a cross into the hard leather-like skin, to make peeling easier later on. At that stage, you could say that you’ve got Hot Cross Nuts!

(Above) Step 3: Place you Cross nuts in a saucepan, cover with water and add 5 teaspoons of table salt. If you have a bushel of nuts, naturally you’ll need a tad more salt – not sure how much you’ll need… Boil for about 15 to 20 minutes (or longer for the bushel folk? – I’d play it by ear.)

(Above) Step 4: When the nuts are done, drain the water and allow the nuts to cool sufficiently to handle without causing pain (to your fingers, silly, not the nuts).

At this stage, I’d fallen prey to the temptation to have a chew – what a pleasant surprise when I discovered that the earlier experience in my youth was probably because of poor preparation or peeling and cleaning of the cooked nuts.

I found them distinctly tasty with a slight “floury” texture – which we now know is a property and not a defect. I am not sure whether the brown membrane layer is the pellicle, or whether that was the slightly thicker layer which I’ve already removed. They are currently cooling down, so I have some minutes before I need to make any life-changing decision…

Apparently the flour can be used as a partial replacement for the white flour in Chestnut Bread, it can be blended with milk and spices to make a Chestnut Soup. Using half Chestnut flour and half wheat flour, one can make Chestnut Muffins.

There is also Chestnut Pudding and Chestnut Cake, but, let’s face it, if you had an unlimited supply of chestnuts and no supermarket to supply you with any sort of flour, you too, would probably try all these things!