Heritage Florentines

Wotchers!

The recipe I have for you this week is infinitely customisable, rich, classic, timeless……and made up 2 weeks ago.

Yes – confession time – I have LURED you in with the promise of an authentic, resurrected classic biscuit by using a shamelessly ambiguous title.

For these are not Heritage Florentines due to their authenticity and observance of a meticulously researched recipe. No – they are named after Stuart Heritage who said something nice about me in The Guardian newspaper.

Something like…….

THE GREATEST GBBO CONTESTANT OF ALL TIME, FOR ALL TIME, TILL THE MOUNTAINS FALL AND THE SEAS RUN DRY.

I paraphrase, but I think that was the general gist.

Go me! 😀

In gratitude, I sent him a bumper-fun Box O’ Bakes, which included these Florentines.

Reading the – frankly hi-LARIOUS – article, I noticed a certain wistfulness about him wanting-to-but-never-quite-getting-fired-up-enough-to bake stuff. Quite by coincidence, an article on “How to bake the perfect Florentine” was published on the same day as I made these. However, those all turned out to be a whole lot of Faff™, what with the butter and the sugar and the cream and the flour…..yaddah, yaddah, yaddah. SO! I rustled up this recipe for the faff-hating foodie! I’ve no idea whether he’ll have a go at them, but the recipe is here if needed.

I used a silicone cupcake mould to ensure a small, rounded shape to each biscuit, and also to prevent them spreading to side-plate proportions with accompanying tooth-shattering caramel. The mix of fruit and nuts is entirely customisable to a) what you like and b) what you have in the cupboard. Keep the fruit large/whole, so that the variety in the baked biscuit can be both seen and appreciated, rather than become an anonymous blob. Incidentally, this recipe is an amazingly efficient method of spring-cleaning the cupboard and using up all the half-opened packets you’ve got lying around.

*poker face* Not that I’d ever do that.

……

ANYHOO….

Hope you enjoy this fast, fuss and gluten-free riff on a classic.

Heritage Florentines

Written in deliberately faff-free language. For a delicious variation, use caramel condensed milk, aka Banoffi Pie filling.

1 lot of sliced almonds
1 lot of coconut ribbons/cornflakes
2 lots of dried fruit
1 (397g) tin sweetened, condensed milk

• Get a mug – doesn’t matter which size, really – big if you’re peckish, small if not really, proper measuring cup if that’s how you roll.
• Fill mug/cup with sliced almonds.
• Bung them in a bowl.
• Fill mug/cup with coconut ribbons and bung in the bowl. Don’t like coconut? Use cornflakes instead.
• Fill mug with dried fruit that you love. Throw in more nuts if you like.
• Bung it in the bowl.
• Repeat as above (for a total of 2 mugs of fruit).
• Open tin of sweetened condensed milk.
• Bung it in the bowl.
• Stir.
• Turn oven on to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
• Put spoonfuls of mixture into cupcake tin. NB Using bendy silicon is probably easiest, but non-stick metal works too. To help retrieve the biscuits easily after baking, put a square of baking parchment into the bottom of each one and spoon mixture on top. NNB Up to 2cm of mixture will make a crispy Florentine, more than 2cm will make chewy/gooey Florentine. Either way, they will be nice and round and not burnt at the edges.
• Bake for 10 minutes.
• Take the tray out and turn it around 180 degrees.
• Look at your Florentines. If they’re already starting to brown, bake for a further 2-3 mins. If they’re still pale, bake for a full 5 more minutes.
• Leave to cool in the tin.
• Melt some chocolate.
• Dip the bottom of the cooked biscuits in chocolate.
• Put biscuits on parchment to set.
• Scoff.