Sweet Treats: Cherry & coconut Florentines

With Christmas on its way and plenty of time on my hands, I’ve been looking to practise baking a number of festive delights. Thanks to the lovely Vicky, I was recommended the BBC Good Food app for iPhone. Even better was that it’s free (although I did buy the festive cookbook for £1.49). There are so many lovely recipes I would love to master and to begin, I made Florentines for the first time.

For an initial attempt, I suppose they weren’t bad. I didn’t have a big enough tin though, so they were a bit on the chunky side – I think this meant the texture wasn’t as it was meant to be, but then, not baking or eating them before, I didn’t really know what to expect. I didn’t have a star cutter to hand either, so cut out circles to look like Christmas baubles.

The recipe says to make 24, I made 18.

Ingredients:

140g light muscovado sugar

100g clear honey

200g salted butter

100g desiccated coconut

140g flaked almonds (I used 100g)

300g glace cherries (I used 200g)

4tbsp plain flour

250g chocolate (I used 125g of both dark and white varieties)

Method:

Preheat the oven to gas mark 6.

Put the sugar, honey and butter in a pan and gently melt.

Slice the cherries and stir in with the coconut, almonds and flour.

Line a baking tray (40cm x 30cm) with greaseproof paper and roughly spread the mixture out to a thin layer. I found using a wet spatula the easiest method, as the mixture is sticky.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until the mixture is golden brown in colour. Set aside to cool and firm up.

Melt the chocolate in a bain-marie.

Line a second tray (same size) or chopping board with greaseproof paper and carefully flip the baked Florentine mixture onto it.

Spread the chocolate over and leave to set.

Once ready, stamp out the shapes, or alternatively slice into squares.

Happy baking!

I’ve since decided if making again, I’d like each Florentine to be marbled, as it definitely looks a lot prettier than just one single colour. Little stars would work well. Or you could even, stamp out the shapes first and then dip them in chocolate!