Papa Barbieri, my dad, used to forage for sweet chestnuts in London’s Kensington Gardens; long before foraging was a thing. We’d eat them roasted and brought to the table in a dish cloth for shelling. At Christmas, my mum would turn them into Monte Bianco – chestnuts puréed with chocolate and covered in vermicelli cream. Later, when my dad opened his own ice-cream shop, the foraged chestnuts would go into the best ice-cream flavour ever: my dad’s chocolate chestnut gelato.
I’ve long wanted to incorporate chestnuts into something chocolatey, so I approached Peta Leith of Lumi Chocolates and asked her if she could use all her skill, both as a chocolatier and as a pastry chef, to make an homage to my mum and dad. And after quite a bit of to and fro-ing and a quasi indecent amount of testing in the process, she has come up with the most wonderful chocolate chestnut truffles. The innards are chestnuts, hazelnuts and 60% cocoa, which are then all covered in an organic, single origin 80% cocoa Ugandan chocolate and then given a dusting of cocoa. As ever with these collaborations, neither the Observer, nor I, make any money. But I really hope you enjoy them, because how excited am I to have my own truffles! They will cost £12.95 for 12 handmade chocolates if you buy them before 1 January. Also before that date, 10% of profits will go to Crisis at Christmas. They are only available on pre-order (because they are freshly made) and will be despatched from the 4 December onwards.
I’d like to think my dad would be really proud of this, but the reality is he’d probably have said something like ‘You eat too much chocolate,’ while prodding my stomach. Ah, parents.
Follow Annalisa on Twitter @AnnalisaB
