Florentines (Great British Bake Off)

As I said with the previous post, I am making some of the technical challenges from BBC's Great British Bake Off.

This week the challenge was to make Florentines - Italian, nutty, caramel biscuits covered on one side in chocolate.

To watch a  video of me making the Florentines, please click on the video below:


Equipment required:
heavy bottom pan
3 baking trays
greaseproof paper

The recipe:
Florentines
50g (1 3/4 oz) unsalted butter
50g (1 3/4 oz) demerara sugar
50g (1 3/4 oz) golden syrup
50g (1 3/4 oz) plain flour
25g (1 oz) dried cranberries, finely chopped
50g (1 3/4 oz) candied peel, finely chopped
25g (1 oz) almonds, finely chopped
25g (1 oz) walnuts, finely chopped
200g (7oz) plain chocolate

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees centigrade (350 fahrenheit or gas mark 4). Brush melted butter over the baking trays and line with greaseproof paper.

Put the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a heavy based pan and slowly melt on the hob.  Once melted, remove from the heat and add in all other ingredients (other than the chocolate) and stir well.

This should make 18 florentines so spoon a teaspoon of mixture on to the baking trays leaving plenty of room between each one (6 per tray).

Bake for around 8-10 minutes until golden-brown. Be careful as they go from cooked to burnt quickly!  Leave to cool for a few minutes on the tray and then move to a wire rack.

Melt the chocolate in a bowl over simmering water.  Ideally melt half of the chocolate to 53 degrees centigrade (127 Fahrenheit) and then add in the rest of the chocolate finely chopped and keep stirring until the chocolate gets to 26 degrees centigrade (79 Fahrenheit).  This is temper the chocolate and should give a shiny finish and help the chocolate set properly.  Spread chocolate on the base of the florentine and then when cooled a little use a fork to create a wavy pattern. Leave to set.