Chestnut cream seems like such an exotic thing, but it is actually so easy to make, especially when you start with the pre-peeled chestnuts available at Costco and other places. And while sweet chestnut cream is typically made using a simple sugar syrup, ours is sweetened with dates, and so even easier to make! There are lots of things that you can do and make with chestnut cream, but one of the classics is a Mont Blanc dessert, which is, traditionally, sweet chestnut cream piled onto a meringue base, and topped with whipped cream (doesn’t that sound yummy?) Following our recipe and directions you can make the entire thing vegan, including with vegan meringue!

Why chestnuts? According to Medicinenet.com, chestnuts have many health benefit, including, among other things, that “chestnuts are loaded with dietary fiber, which encourages the growth of healthy bacteria in the intestines”, that they are high in Vitamin C, that they increase the production of white blood cells, therefore “identifying and neutralizing free radicals inside the body”, that they are “chock-full of good fats”, that they help to manage blood sugar, and that they help increase bone mineral density!

Plus, of course, they are darned tasty, versatile (chop them up in a salad!), and can be made into lots of different things, including, of course, a Mont Blanc.

“Mont Blanc” means ‘white mountain’. According to the Institute of Culinary Education, “Named for its resemblance to the famed snow-capped peak straddling the border of France and Italy in the Alps, the dessert likely has its origins in the latter, but it has been embraced as a staple of French patisserie for decades. Versions of the Mont Blanc date back to the 19th century and in its simplest form, the dessert comprises little more than a mound of sweetened chestnut puree piped into distinctive threads, or vermicelli, and topped with whipped cream. It has seen a resurgence in recent years as pastry chefs around the world develop creative updates and interpretations.”

Originally the Mont Blanc dessert was just a pile of sweet chestnut cream topped with whipped cream and no base. At some point along the way the chestnut cream started being piped in vermicelli or worm-like strands (we don’t do that, but you certainly can if you like), and even further along in its history the Mont Blanc dessert acquired a base of either meringue (traditional) or cake or tart.

We wanted to get this recipe for vegan sweet chestnut cream out to you as soon as we developed it, and don’t have a dessert occasion coming up, so while we are going to give you the directions for making a vegan Mont Blanc, including vegan meringue, we have no picture of our own assembled Mont Blanc, so here are two from incredible (but not vegan) food sources:

As you can see, Delia uses our preferred method of building a Mont Blanc: just piling the sweet chestnut cream onto a meringue base, while the Spruce Eats pipes it into strands.

Our vegan sweet chestnut cream is a fully Costco recipe, by which we mean that all of the ingredients (and there are only 3!) come from Costco, although of course you can get them elsewhere as well. In particular we get our chestnuts and dates from Costco, both of which are also organic! The chestnuts are pre-peeled and come in a box with four packets of chestnuts. Each packet has about 12 chestnuts in it, which is perfect!

Easy Vegan Sweet Chestnut Cream Recipe and Vegan Mont Blanc Directions