The ultimate homemade luxury: homemade florentines

In my view these jewelled beauties are the ultimate homemade luxuries. They are really quite simple to make but look impressive and are delicious with coffee or as an after dinner treat. I made a box this year for my grandparents.

Fruit and nut mixture for the florentines

Ingredients

Chopped blanched almonds and glace cherries

I don't usually like baking things which have lots of ingredients, but most of these things you will already have in the cupboard, and for the fruit and nuts you can mix and match with what you already have. Particularly around Christmas, you will probably find that you have lots of these things already. 

50g butter

125ml double cream

125g sugar

150g candied fruit (a mix of glace cherries and citrus peel is nice, but I threw in some dried cranberries into this mix as I had some in the cupboard. If you like ginger you could add some finely chopped stem ginger)

200g toasted nuts (this could be just flaked almonds, but you can use chopped blanched almonds, pecans, hazlenuts)

50g plain flour

250g chocolate (I usually use about 50% cocoa solids, but see below)

Toasted flaked almonds and hazlenuts

Method

1. First prepare your fruit and nuts. If you are using whole hazlenuts or almonds that still have their skins on, you will first need to remove the skins. For the almonds, blanch them in boiling water, leave them in their for 5 minutes and then they should pop out of their skins. For the hazlenuts, roast them and then rub them vigorously  in a tea towel to remove the skins.

2. If you are using glace cherries, wash off the syrup with hot water and then cut them into quarters. Chop any other fruit or nuts into equivalent size pieces but don't worry too much about this - it creates a nice texture if the bits are different shapes and sizes. 

3. Next heat the butter, sugar and cream until it is homogenous and liquid. 

Step 4

 4. Then stir in the flour and fruit and nuts.

 5. Spoon a full teaspoon of the mixture onto a baking sheet covered with greeseproof paper and press it down slightly into a circle

 6. Fill the sheet with these circles, leaving a good space between them

Step 4

Step 6

 7. Bake the biscuits at 180 degrees for about 10 minutes until they start to turn golden. This will happen quite quickly so keep an eye on them!

Step 7 - baked florentines

 8. Take the baking paper off the trays and lie it flat so that the biscuits set flat. They will be quite flexible still at this stage so be careful.

Step 9

9. Melt the chocolate in a glass or ceramic bowl over a pan of water, or microwave it carefully. You can use one type of chocolate or use a mixture of dark, milk and white chocolate if you want a selection of florentines. I tend to mix dark and milk chocolate together to make one sort of florentine that is slightly bitter but not too dark.

10. When they are cool (about an hour later) turn the biscuits the other way up on a tray or plate and cover them in chocolate.

Step 10

 Package your florentines in a box lined with aluminium foil with a layer of foil in between layers if you are doubling up. Tie the box with a pretty ribbon if you are giving the florentines away.

Finished box of 18 florentines, with 10 left over for eating!