Florentines

By Emma Hawkins | December 24, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

It’s less than 24 hours till Christmas day and I’ve got a one more quick festive recipe for you. For as long as I can remember I’ve made florentines as gifts for friends and family, and this year was no exception. Somewhere amongst the art, drama rehearsals, and work I found time to make 50 florentines which I’ll be giving out over the next couple of days.

If you’ve never had one of these before they’re little orangey, almondy biscuits coated in chocolate, which are really delicious and moreish. I’m not a huge fan of almonds or oranges, but somehow I really love these and just the smell of them baking brings back memories of Christmas. They’re also really easy to make – essentially just bung everything in a pan and then bake them in little mounds!

You can then serve them as a snack, nibble or even bag them up as I do and give them as gifts. I find 4 or 5 in a little cellophane bag, with a ribbon and tag makes perfect presents for anyone and everyone.

Recipe

Makes 30

Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

225g Butter
375g light brown sugar
375g Flaked almonds, chopped roughly
200g Raisins, chopped roughly
2 Oranges, rind only
150g White chocolate
150g Milk chocolate
150g Dark chocolate

Method

Preheat the oven to 180˚C and line 3 baking trays with baking paper.
Put the butter into a pan and melt on a medium heat. Add the sugar and heat slowly until the sugar dissolves in the butter and the mixture starts to bubble.
Take the pan off the heat and stir in the chopped almonds, raisins and orange zest.
Put blobs of mixture onto the lined baking trays, making sure they’re well-spaced apart as the mixture will spread (about 4 per-tray).
Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes until starting to turn golden. Take out of the oven and after a couple of minutes use two spoons to reshape the biscuits if they’ve spread too much and then leave them to harden completely.
Transfer the biscuits to a cooling rack and then continue with spooning and baking the rest of the mixture.
Once all your biscuits are baked take the chocolates and put them into three separate heat-proof bowls – one for each chocolate. Put these over pans of gently simmering water and leave to melt.
Take one of the biscuits and spread a little of the chocolate over the back, flat side of them. Then use a fork to make zig-zag marks through the chocolate and then leave to set. Repeat with the rest of the biscuits, making 1/3 white, 1/3 milk and 1/3 dark chocolate. Serve!