Bursa Kestane Şekeri

Appearance & taste

Bursa Kestane Şekeri are peeled sweet chestnuts cooked in syrup, amber to yellowish in colour; they should not be too dark or caramelised. Depending on their weight, they are sold in four sizes: small (8 to 10 g), medium (10 to 14 g), large (14 to 20 g) and extra large (from 22 g). They are packed with or without syrup; with syrup, the fruit makes up at least 60 %. The pH is between 5 and 5.8.

The confection tastes sweet of soft caramel, honey, buttercream, roasted coffee and sugared vanilla, with woody notes. It must not taste sour, bitter, metallic, excessively burnt or astringent. The label states “protected geographical indication”, the size and whether the chestnuts are packed with or without syrup.

Production

The chestnuts used are easy to peel, with a thin, not too dark skin, and the outer shell makes up at most 25 % of their weight; the inside should be cream-coloured and not taste sour or astringent. Spoilt, worm-eaten, frost-damaged or dark fruits are excluded. Medium (7 to 10 g) and large (10 to 15 g) chestnuts are best suited. White granulated sugar and purified, softened and UV-treated water are added.

The chestnuts are peeled, freed of their inner skin, sorted by size, boiled and cooked in a specially prepared syrup. Because the confection should keep its colour and not become too dark, the cooking requires, according to the specification, great skill, acquired under the guidance of a master and passed down from generation to generation. Chestnuts that break in the process are sorted by size and packed separately as broken chestnuts. All steps take place in the province of Bursa.

Origin & history

The area is the province of Bursa in the south of the Marmara region. According to the specification, documents on the confection go back to the 15th century; Islamic records show that candied sweet chestnuts were made in the Ottoman palace. At the beginning of the 20th century, people began making them in the Şekerciler Bazaar in Bursa. According to written sources, Bursa Kestane Şekeri was sent to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1928, and delegations from Ankara took it home with them from Bursa. A dictionary of Ottoman cuisine from 2010 describes the repeated cooking of the peeled chestnuts in syrup.

According to the specification, sweet chestnuts from the Uludağ mountains near Bursa were already mentioned by the travellers Ibn Battuta in the 14th century and Evliya Çelebi in the 17th century for their size and taste. In Bursa, chestnuts are used in many dishes, and the confection is offered to guests on special occasions. In the past, all the chestnuts used came from the area; because of rising demand, chestnuts from outside Bursa are now also processed, provided they meet the requirements.