Figgy Pudding and Black Forest Florentines.

I like making Florentines almost as much as I like eating them. A winning combination of nuts, dried fruit, caramel and chocolate: my only quibble with Delia calling Florentines "the very best biscuit in the world" is that the chocolate digestive is indisputably* the best biscuit for dunking in tea. However, as they are approximately four million calories a nibble, I only make them between my father's birthday at the end of September, and Christmas.

The first year I made Florentines I used Felicity Cloake's study of the subject to get started, and her "perfect Florentines" recipe works well. I have played around with various combinations of nuts and fruit since then, even so far as making "coconut Florentines" with no almonds at all. These were tasty, but not really recognisable as Florentines. As a pavlova requires meringue, so Florentines require almonds. There is also a strong case for Florentines needing the dark chocolate base to offset the caramel and dried fruits.

I ordered a kilogram of chocolate chips off Amazon and started thinking about what kind of Florentines I fancied making to celebrate the start of the season - I mean, my dad's birthday. I triangulated flavours for almond and chocolate using The Flavour Thesaurus: I found orange, which also linked chocolate and almond with fig; and cherry, which got me thinking about Black Forest Gateau.

*I disputed it with a friend. We experimented. My friend was right.

Figgy Pudding Florentines

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I often use figs in Florentines: like Ms Cloake I enjoy the additional crunch provided by the fig seeds. I decided to instil orange flavour with orange zest and by soaking the dried fruit in triple sec. With fig and orange I got the idea of Figgy Pudding into my head, which meant dates and prunes. Unfortunately when I returned from the shop I realised I had somehow picked up two kinds of figs, and no prunes. Just figs and dates then. I happened to have pistachios in the cupboard so I used a few of these too.

I diced the figs and dates to around 7mm and soaked them in two tablespoons of triple sec overnight. I mixed these with flaked almonds, chopped pistachios and orange zest. I then added enough flour to coat the fruit and nuts, which turned out to be four tablespoons. This is more than I would usually use: the figs were the partially rehydrated "soft" kind and were much stickier than the classic dried figs, requiring more flour.

Black Forest Florentines

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Black Forest Gateau typically has layers of whipped cream, which I could reference with vanilla and white chocolate. All white chocolate would probably be too sweet, so I decided to stick with a dark chocolate base and simply drizzle a little white over the top.

I soaked quartered cherries in vanilla extract and also amaretto, to enhance the almond flavour.

I mixed the cherries with flaked almonds and coated them with two tablespoons of flour.

Caramel and cooking

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For both kinds of Florentine, once the fruit and nuts were assembled I melted demerera sugar with butter, added a large pinch of Maldon seasalt and stirred it through. I pressed a tablespoon of mixture into the base of some silicon muffin tins.

Classically, Florentines are cooked on a baking tray like a normal biscuit, and spread out. I can't remember now why I originally used the muffin tins, but I like the neat circles they produce and if they end up being rather thicker than a classic Florentine, they are how I like them.

I cooked them at 180 degrees for ten minutes, then left them to cool in the tin before turning them out. (A major advantage of silicon bakeware is that nothing sticks to it.) You need to leave time for the biscuits to cool and the caramel to harden, or they will crumble.

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Chocolate

When all the biscuits were cooked and cooled, I tempered chocolate using the no-thermometer method. It is worth tempering chocolate for Florentines as it gives the biscuits an extra snap.

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I used a silicon brush to paint the base of each biscuit twice, on the second round using a fork to make wavy lines (right biscuit). Towards the end the chocolate began to harden so I simply used the brush to make the pattern (left biscuit).

Finally I tempered white chocolate and drizzled that over the Black Forest Florentines.

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Tasting and Reflections

Short of burning, there is a limit to how far you can go wrong with these ingredients, and both Florentines were very tasty. Overall I think the Black Forest Florentines were more successful: they were thinner and with a crunchier texture thanks to the small pieces of cherry and low flour content. I also liked the visual contrast between the dark cherries, golden almonds and white chocolate over the top.

The Figgy Pudding Florentines were softer and less cohesive: more like an assembly of fruit and nuts stuck together with caramel and chocolate than a single biscuit. I think this is mostly due to the use of the soft figs. In themselves they had contributed to a softer consistency; and they had required more flour to separate the pieces, resulting in a slightly "cakier" texture. I will definitely use the proper dried figs next time. I don't think the pistachios contributed much: next time I might trade them for dried citrus peel.

Ingredients

Very approximately:

Figgy Pudding Florentines

70g figs

30g dates

2tbs triple sec

25g pistachios

100g flaked almonds

Zest of one orange

4 tbs plain flour

125g unsalted butter

125g demerera sugar

Large pinch of Maldon seasalt.

Black Forest Florentines

100g dried cherries

2tbs amaretto

1tsp vanilla bean extract

100g flaked almonds

2tbs plain flour

125g unsalted butter

125g demerera sugar

Large pinch of Maldon seasalt

60g white chocolate for drizzling

350g dark chocolate made enough for two layers of chocolate on all the Florentines.