Chestnut Flour Dinner Rolls

I could live on chestnuts, I think. I’d roast them and eat them one by one, and when my stomach hurt from doing that I’d mash the remaining roasted nuts with vanilla bean seeds and honey or maple syrup or sugar syrup and maybe some almond milk depending on how thick I wanted it. Then I’d eat that with a spoon or in crepes topped with more of whatever sweetener I’d used, and/or homemade strawberry or blueberry jam.

And when I’d really overdone it on chestnuts I’d preserve the harvest by drying and grinding the chestnuts into a flour. It’s a little sweet, chestnut flour, and more subtle than amaranth, so it’s great in desserts, pancakes and breads. It’s perfect combined with bland, neutral rice flour, as it is in this recipe, for a subtly sweet loaf of something warm and almost fluffy. Well, as close to fluffy as gluten-free gets.

It’s a little tough to find chestnut flour, though. And heaven knows I’m not going to make it myself anytime soon. But my roommate brought some for me from France – land of exquisite chestnuts. He also brought me the air-sealed, pre-peeled ones in a jar. Those I ate as a snack and had to limit myself to max four a day to savour them. Much like these dinner rolls. Though four may be slightly excessive…

Chestnut Flour Dinner Rolls
adapted from Gluten-Free Goddess

1 1/2 cups rice flour
1 1/2 cups tapioca flour (not tapioca starch. Anyone know what the difference is, though?)
1/2 cup + 2 tbsp chestnut flour
1 tsp baking soda
pinch of guar gum or xanthan gum (optional)
1 tsp fine sea salt
1 packet rapid rise yeast (aka “instant”)
2 tbsp light brown sugar (or 2 tbsp cane sugar plus 1/8 tsp molasses)
3/4 cup almond milk (or rice or soy or hemp, or just water)
3/4 cup hot water
3 tbsp sunflower oil (or neutral-flavoured olive oil, or earth balance, or butter at room temperature)
2 free-range local organic eggs, beaten (or Ener-G Egg Replacer equal to 2 eggs)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice or rice vinegar

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350F for 5 minutes, then turn it off. You just want to warm it. Grease a 12-cup muffin pan or other baking dish(es).

In a large mixing bowl, sieve together the flours and dry ingredients. Don’t just plop them all in the bowl or your rolls will have a much harder time rising. Add some air by sieving all the ingredients together. It’s not as finicky as egg whites, but a few extra minutes here means fluffier rolls in an hour and a half.

Add in the wet ingredients (cutting in the earth balance or butter with a fork if using) and whisk until a thick, smooth batter forms, but don’t over-stir. Stop when all the flour is incorporated.

Spoon the bread dough into the twelve greased and floured cups. Even out the tops with wet fingers. Place the pan in the center of the still warm but turned off oven to let the dough rise. No need to cover.

Wait 50 minutes.

Then turn your oven to 350ºF. (Leave the dough in there while it heats up.) Bake until the rolls are golden and firm, about 22-30 minutes, depending on the size. “Thump them with a fingertip- they should sound hollow,” is the instruction from Gluten-free Goddess, but my hearing isn’t that good with bread, unfortunately. A good note from on high, however, is that if your oven is slow to heat, you may have to bake the rolls longer.

Remove the rolls from the oven and place the pan(s) on a wire rack to cool. Using a knife to loosen the edges of the rolls from the pan and ease the rolls out. They are tender when warm. Eat them while warm and a little sponge-y and gooey. They’re fine when they cool, but warm with a dollop of earth balance or butter or olive oil or almond butter, or jam, or – you get the picture – is heaven.