Making Florentines

Until a few weeks ago, I never even knew what florentines were (other than the Florentine from the lovely Florentine and Pig children's books). Then I got to make some chocolate ones (without the biscuit part) at the chocolate session I went to.

Then we got to see Florentine's on this weeks GBBO and I thought I'd love to have a go at making those. So we used Merry Berry's Florentine recipe and Miss T got started on helping me. She helped to weigh and measure the ingredients we needed.

I was surprised that you didn't need any unusual ingredients and although we didn't have the exact ingredients we needed, we were able to substitute with similar ingredients. I didn't have demerara sugar, so we used light brown muscavado sugar. Instead of candied peel, I used mixed fruit which had sultanas and peel in it. Oh and we used milk chocolate and white chocolate instead of plain as that is what the kids preferred. We have no sugar themometre so managed without one.

So in summary we used: 50g each of butter, sugar, golden syrup, plain flour and dried mixed fruit, and 25g each of almonds, walnuts and dried cranberries.

My top tip would be to get the nuts and fruit finely chopped before starting the syrupy mixture on the hob, otherwise it can be a rush to try and prepare it.

We stuck strictly to 8 minutes cooking time at 180C. A few of the florentines got stuck to the baking paper but I discovered that if they are left to cool longer, they come off more easily.

Florentines cooling

 Instead of doing the classic zigzag pattern on the back of the florentines with a fork, we decided to have some fun piping patterns with the chocolate. So D melted some chocolate.

D melts the chocolate

I made some piping bags using greaseproof paper following the tutorial on Raisie Bay. It was great to be able to make little mini piping bags so Miss T could do her own piping too.

The kids loved this stage and here they are proudly showing off their designs.

I decided to have a go at doing some of the cocktail stick patterns I'd learnt at the chocolate workshop.

I would never have dreamt of ever being brave enough to try cooking something like this a few years ago but since blogging and seeing other people make and bake and have fun in the kitchen, it has helped encourage me to have a go at baking.

It certainly helps to have 3 children who also enjoy getting in the kitchen and aren't afraid of trying to cook anything. In fact, The Brilliant Chef himself has been back in the kitchen baking some yummy orange choc chip cookies this week too.

I missed the deadline for the linky last week so I couldn't link up our Cherry Cake or Swiss Roll, but this week I've managed to write this up in time to join in with Mummy Mishaps blogger bake off.