It's never too soon to get ready for Christmas and the shops all around Versailles are already ready, teasing the consumers with Christmas decorations and food (with emphasis on food!). Even the Versailles municipality installed some Christmas lights on the streets (but not powered them yet as we try to be gentle with our planet and electricity budget) and I can already see twinkling lights in some of the shops' windows (or maybe they were already there from the last year...)
Anyway, I was asking myself what can I do to bring a little excitement in my kitchen and prepare for the upcoming holidays (the Christmas spirit and all) and while perusing my endless recipe list I found the perfect thing to do: les marrons glacés, candied chestnuts. This delicacy in particular costs an arm and a leg to buy ready-made (60+ Euros per kg, more than 1 Euro a piece, something like a macaroon, you know...) but sweet chestnuts in general are a must-have ingredient in all the French winter holidays cuisine: simply roasted or steamed as a side dish, in crème de marrons (a chestnut purée, often used to fill the traditional Christmas cake, la bûche de Noël), in dinde aux marrons (turkey with chestnuts, the traditional Christmas main course) or candied, individually wrapped, and served as it is as a much loved sweet.
I declare open the chestnuts craze of this year!
Attention, please! The recipe after the jump doesn't contain chocolate, hooray!