Florentines are one of the easiest sweets to make, and involve minimal baking. That said, it’s also surprisingly easy to wind up with one enormous, tray-sized, nutty brandy-snap or, worse, clusters that don’t spread at all and fall apart when you try to pick them up.
This simple recipe should produce reliably crunchy chewy florentines.
Ideally, use a silicon muffin or cupcake mould, or line a suitable tin with disks of baking parchment. Don’t use paper cases unless they are the kind made from baking parchment (the florentines will stick to other paper cases).
You can bake them on a flat tray lined with baking parchment for lacier, more organic looking florentines. They will spread to around 8 or 9 cm diameter uncontained, though, so leave plenty of room.
This is a very adaptable recipe – as long as you follow the quantities for nuts and dried fruit, you can use pretty much any combination. Flaked almonds make for picture perfect florentines (I had run out when I made the pictured ones), but chopped almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, brazils, peanuts, cashews, pecans, pistachios or, if you’re feeling lavish, macadamias, will all work.
Candied orange works beautifully on its own, but you could equally use any mixture of candied peel, glace cherries, cranberries, dried apricots or pineapple, or a modest amount of preserved ginger.
This recipe will make twelve 6 cm florentines like those pictured.
vegan florentines…
ingredients
- 50 g light muscovado or other brown sugar
- 30 g golden syrup
- 25 g coconut oil
- 10 g peanut butter
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- 60 g chopped nuts (20 g each of almonds, walnuts and hazelnuts, or any other combination)
- 40 g chopped candied orange peel (or other candied/dried fruit)
- 50 g dark chocolate
method
- Set the oven to 180°C/360°F. You will need a silicon muffin/cupcake pan, or a metal pan very lightly oiled and lined with disks of baking parchment. (If using a flat tray, line with baking parchment and allow enough space for 9cm florentines.
- Melt the golden syrup, coconut oil, peanut butter and sugar together in a small saucepan or in the microwave, gently until it is hot but not boiling. Stir to create a soft, fudgy mixture.
- Add the nuts and fruit to the pan or bowl along with the flour and stir thoroughly to ensure everything is evenly distributed. It is best to do this quickly, while the fudgy mixture is still soft.
- Press teaspoonfuls of the mixture into the baking pan to fill the base of the holes (or spoon onto a tray if that’s what you’re using, and press the mixture with a spoon into thick disks perhaps 4 cm diameter).
- Bake for up to twelve minutes, until the fudgy mixture has boiled into toffee around the fruit and nuts.
- Wait until the florentines are mostly but not entirely cooled before removing from the pan/tray and placing upside down on a cool surface.
- Melt the chocolate and, using a teaspoon or a brush, spread a thin layer across the base of each florentine. You can use a fork to create a zig-zag effect.
- Leave the florentines to set completely in a cool place (the fridge, if it’s a warm day).
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