Florentines

Page 52-53 of TGBBO Big Book of Baking

This isn’t one of my mother’s recipes. It’s from Mary Berry and was featured the technical challenge on Series 5, Episode 2, "Biscuits" of The Great British Bake Off, presented as Season 1 in the US (yes, it’s all quite confusing). This episode has a special place in my heart because It was the last episode of GBBO my mother and I watched together. I had bought all the ingredients to make the cookies for her, but sadly, shortly after, she went into the hospital, then hospice, and I never had time to make them for her. The ingredients sat in the pantry for months. Every time my eyes fell on them I was hit with grief and sadness that we never had time to make them together. I finally decided that it was time (and was able to summon the strength) to bake them. I think she nudged me a bit too. Mom would not want all those ingredients to go stale. 

The Recipe

Florentines

Florentines are a lacy Italian cookie (or biscuit as the English say) made of chopped nuts and candied fruits, sugar or syrup, and butter. They are most often coated with a layer of chocolate. Traditionally, they do not contain eggs and little to no flour. 

Ingredients

• 50g (1¾ oz) butter
• 50g (1¾ oz) demerara sugar
• 50g (1¾ oz) golden syrup
• 50g (1¾ oz) plain flour
• 25g (1oz) dried cranberries or glacé cherries, finely chopped
• 50g (1¾oz) candied peel, finely chopped
• 25g (1oz) almonds, finely chopped
• 25g (1oz) walnut pieces, finely chopped
• 200g (7oz) plain chocolate (70% cocoa solids)

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Line three baking trays with baking parchment or silicon sheets.
2. Measure the butter, sugar and syrup into a small pan and heat gently until the butter is melted. Remove from the heat and add the flour, chopped cranberries or cherries, candied peel and nuts to the pan. Stir well to mix.
3. Make 18 florentines by spooning six teaspoonfuls of the mixture on to each of the prepared baking trays, leaving plenty of room for them to spread during cooking.
4. Bake for 8-10 minutes, or until golden-brown. Leave the florentines to cool before lifting onto a cooling rack using a palette knife (if the florentines have been baked on greased baking trays, then allow them to harden for a few moments only before lifting onto cooling racks to cool completely). If the florentines become too hard to remove, then pop them back into the oven for a few minutes to allow them to soften.
5. Set a heatproof bowl over a pan of simmering water, without letting the bowl touch the water. Temper the chocolate by breaking half of the chocolate into the bowl. Stir until the chocolate reaches a melting temperature of 53C/127F. Meanwhile, finely chop or grate the remaining chocolate.
6. Carefully remove the bowl from the pan, add the rest of the chocolate and stir gently until the chocolate has cooled to 26C/79F.
7. Spread a little melted chocolate over the flat base of each florentine and leave to cool slightly before marking a zigzag in the chocolate with a fork. Leave to set, chocolate side up on a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container.

This recipe contains two types of sugar that might not be familiar to some, especially outside of the UK: Demerara sugar and Golden Syrup.

Demerara Sugar

Sugar Man!

Demerara sugar is a minimally-refined raw cane sugar that's usually used to sweeten beverages. The crystals are larger and lighter in color than the more familiar turbinado sugar.I couldn’t find any demerara sugar locally and I don’t have my own personal sugar man service (at least at this time). I didn’t want to order online and wait, so I ended up using regular brown sugar in the same weight amount.

Maybe I'll go into the sugar biz.

I realized after the fact, I could have used Turbinado sugar in its place, as it is quite similar, just a different texture. Most of you will be familiar with turbinado sugar if you have ever gone to a coffeehouse. It’s the sugar in the “Sugar in the Raw” packets you find sandwiched between the other dozen or so sweetener choices. I have found turbinado sugar in nearly every grocery store, but I have yet to buy it. I have oodles of “Sugar in the Raw” packets squirreled away in drawers from various coffee events (I don’t put sugar in my coffee, but apparently, I look the type since I’m always given several packets per cup). I will note this for next time.

Golden Syrup

Golden Syrup, also referred to Light Treacle, is a thick golden amber-colored inverted sugar syrup. It has the consistency of a thin honey. The sweet syrup is actually a natural by-product of refining cane sugar. It widely available in most countries and a traditional staple in England. It can be used as sweetener with everything from pancakes to pie, much like corn syrup. Many people use it as a substitute for honey, as it does have a somewhat similar flavor – sweet, almost buttery flavor, and doesn’t have the candy-sweet aftertaste like corn syrup (in my opinion).

Although it may be difficult to find in a regular grocery store, it can be found at specialty stores, such as World Market, Whole Foods and it’s readily available online. I happened to find it at Whole Foods when shopping with my mom. It’s not as cheap as corn syrup, but, in my opinion, it has a far superior taste to corn or Karo Syrup and I can see myself opting for it whenever possible. It could become costly if you were using it recipes that called for large amounts of it, but for recipes like this, I have plenty to last me. You could probably find it cheaper online as well. Do be aware, if you are thinking of replacing one for the other, I have heard that there are complex sugar differences between corn syrup and golden syrup, especially when it comes to crystallization, that could make drastic differences in your baking. Be sure to do a quick Google search to see how others have fared in the process. 

When you start baking, you discover there’s a world of sugars out there. A handy guide to all types of sugars can be found here: 

http://www.epicurious.com/ingredients/the-ultimate-guide-to-buying-and-using-sugar-article

There’s a ton of information on syrups out there. Here is one to get started:

http://www.formaggiokitchen.com/blog/getting-to-know-your-syrups-molasses-sorghum-cane-syrup-and-golden-syrup

The Bake

This was my first technical challenge. The bakers were give one and a quarter hours to bake 18 florentines. 

Chopping the fruit and nuts does take a bit of time, and my knife skills are not the best, so not all the fruits and nuts came out to a nice, fine, uniform size, but I didn’t do too bad. One could put them in a food processor or chopper, but watch that you don’t pulverize them too small. 

The Candied Peel

Prepare to be candied!

I wasn’t looking forward to this. I have avoided making candied peel because I know how long and painstaking the process can be. Oh, candied peel purists used to tell me it “really isn’t that difficult” all whilst having one hand supporting their backache and hiding the other with fresh scrapes across the fingers, wincing while citrus juice oozed into the open wounds. I seriously considered going out and buying it (the bakers were provided with a handy little jar of it, quite possibly to avoid a meltdown), until I stumbled upon Alton Brown’s article about candied peel. SO MUCH EASIER to make this way. Use the peeler! The peeler is your friend and saves so much time and many Band-Aids. You can get the pith off much easier without all the scraping and his cooking method is quicker and easier than the traditional way I knew about. Try it. You might be whipping up batches for holiday treats before you know it.

http://altonbrown.com/candied-orange-peel-recipe/

After all the chopping and candying, it was time to make the actual cookie mix. 

Golden syrup, butter and sugar. 

I used Mary’s trick for getting uniform-sized cookies. I divided the mix into three and then scoop six spoonfuls from each. It worked pretty well, not perfect, but not bad, and much faster than weighing and measuring. Be sure to give them lots of room to spread on the baking sheet. Also, make sure watch them carefully. They can over bake quickly, causing burnt edges and dried out fruits. 

Lacy enough to peek through!

It has been a long time since I worked with chocolate and I had never done too much chocolate work in general. I was a little nervous about melting and tempering the chocolate (Tempering is a process to make your melted chocolate glossy and smooth appearance and texture. It gives it that snap. If not tempered, chocolate will appear waxy, gray, and you can see where the cocoa fat has separated). 

As Mary Berry said in her masterclass on this recipe “Remember, chocolate melts in a child’s pocket so you don’t need intense heat underneath” I kept the heat low, added the chocolate at different times as instructed and the chocolate tempered fairly well. 

As for coating the florentines with the chocolate, that didn’t fare as well. The chocolate was pretty much everywhere. Kind of looked as if some tragic accident happened on my counter in an old black and white movie. So much so, I couldn’t even get a picture due to the fact that I didn’t want even imagine what would happen if I chocolate-dipped my ancient iPhone, coating the inner workings. There is no amount of rice that would ever draw that out! 

I used a pastry brush to coat the chocolate on the back of the cookies, but it did drip everywhere and I had some trouble getting the chocolate to set. It could have been a couple of things: the type of chocolate I used, the humidity in the kitchen that day, or I didn’t let it cool down enough. Eventually I did get all 18 coated with the chocolate, probably a little thicker than required, but I’m all for a thick layer of chocolate. The zig-zags proved to be a little tricky. The chocolate wasn’t holding the shape I kept moving my hand the wrong way, but I got the hang of it. They came out a bit untidy, but not terrible. 

The Results

Not too shabby!  Not sure if I would have made “Star Baker” but I think it would have done all right. 

Presented on the Gingham Alter.

These are super tasty!!! Chewy and slightly crisp and quite decadent. You get lots of flavor in each bite. As Mary Berry mentioned, they are little like a Brandy Snap, with fruit and chocolate instead of the brandy flavor. So good and very hard to stop at one!

This was my first technical challenge. The bakers were given one and a quarter hours for the bake. Needless to say, I did NOT finish in the time allotted. In my defense, I did not have the advantage of a dedicated tent, years of baking expertise and two charmingly cheeky hosts spouting puns of encouragement. I was in my kitchen, I had to take two calls, the mailman showed up with an amazon box, the cat informed me that his mealtime does not wait for any bake… Plus, I made my own candied orange peel, which was provided in the technical challenge, so that added at least an hour to my time. However, I did have the advantage of a full recipe, seeing the correct way to make them on the episode AND Mary’s masterclass episode, so I should have been ahead of the game. All and all, it was an exhausting afternoon. However, the results were worth it. 

Once you get the hang of it, I’m sure making these would become much quicker and easier, especially if you already have your candied peel and fruits chopped ahead of time. You could also do the chocolate layer at a different time if you wanted to break up the baking time as well. Lots of options once you get the steps down. I’m curious of how these would bake and taste if I added chocolate bits to the cookie itself instead of spreading the chocolate on the back. Not as decadent, but might be something I experiment with at a later date. 

No time to focus the camera. Must eat florentines now!

I know my mom would have enjoyed these. I also know she would insist I give you this warning, as I could hear her saying it in my head: “Be sure to brush and floss after!” It’s a legit reminder. The dried fruits and candied peel will stick Oreo-style in your molars and form a nice sugar-coating across your gum-lines. Unless you enjoy hanging out with your dentist as he or she drills into your enamel, I would listen to her. I brushed and flossed, Mom. Thanks for the reminder. :)

Strawberry Bread

I don’t remember where my mother got this recipe or when she started making it. All I know is that at one point in my childhood, we made and ate a lot of strawberry bread. My guess is that it came out of the years of zucchini bread. I grew up in New England where the plight of the late summer zucchini infestation is very real. These innocent-looking squash would become mutant hordes within a blink of an eye. Every Yankee knew of 50 plus ways to use the baseball-bat sized squash, and zucchini bread was a

summertime staple. After moving to the Midwest, we no longer feared opening the front door to find a “veggie gift” left on the porch from the neighbors. However, we missed the tradition of the tasty snack bread. 

I have fond memories of this bread, so I’m excited to make it again and see if I can make it turn out as good as mom did.

The Recipe

3 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons cinnamon

2 cups sugar (1/4 cup or more, if desired)

3 eggs (well-beaten)

10 ounce package unsweetened frozen strawberries (thawed and crushed) *(20 ounces unsweetened if desired)

1 1/4 cup cooking oil

1 1/4 cups nuts (pecans or walnuts) optional

*1 teaspoon strawberry extract

Sift dry ingredients together into a large bowl. Make a well and add oil. Mix in other ingredients. Stir and dampen. 

Pour into two greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 mins or until done (pick clean). 

The Bake

I went for the full 20 ounces of strawberries, because, well, the more strawberry the better, right? I did not add nuts because I never remembered nuts in our batches.

The flavor in question

I wasn’t hip on the idea of using strawberry extract. I couldn’t remember if and when my mom started using it, although she must have if she added it to the recipe. I’ve never liked the taste of artificial strawberry (I was not a Frankenberry fan. I was a Count Cholula girl). For the sake of the recipe, I thought I would try it. I had a tough time finding it though. I went to three different grocery stores before I finally found a natural version at Whole Foods. It smelled much more “strawberry” than the old stuff, so I went ahead and tried it.

Why aren't you baking my pretties?

After 45 minutes, the loaves weren’t close to being done with the clean pic test. I believe this was due to the fact that I did indeed use the full 20 ounces of the strawberries, and, the frozen strawberries I purchased from Whole Foods were FAR superior from the ones we used to get at the Tradewell back in the day. These were plump and full of juice and quite flavorful for frozen (perhaps that is where the addition of the strawberry extract came into play. The frozen strawberries back then didn’t have much flavor). With the additional liquid and moisture, I added almost a 1/2 hour to the baking time. I just kept checking from time to time until I got the clean pick.

The Results

Oh my! One taste took me right back to my mom’s kitchen. Delicious! Just as tasty and addictive as I remembered. Although I could taste it was there, the strawberry extract didn’t overpower the bread, and this particular brand didn’t have that artificial candy-like aftertaste. I think if you have good quality strawberries, you can leave it out, but I liked the flavor.

Finally done! Smells SO good.

I don’t think it needs any additional sugar than the 2 cups. In fact, next time I might back off the sugar just a tad actually. I believe this is due to the higher quality of frozen strawberries used, which were sweeter on their own.

As I mentioned, we never tried it with fresh strawberries. It would probably be tasty, but a different flavor, as the crushed fruit wouldn’t blend through the bread. It would be like banana bread with slices of bananas instead of the ripe puree.

The waiting is the hardest part!

Old habits die hard. I used to be so anxious to get into that strawberry goodness, that I would try and take it out of the pan too soon. I did the same thing again. I didn’t wait long enough for the bread to cool in the pan before turning it out, so the bottom stuck a bit and the loaves started to fall apart. Give them at least 20 minutes to cool, if not more. Also, don’t cut right into it. When warm, it doesn’t slice, it crumbles. Let it cool COMPLETELY before cutting, like over an hour or two. I know, I know. Who can wait that long? You can also pop it in the freezer to speed up the cooling, and it will slice up much nicer. Or, if you don’t care what it looks like, just dive right in.

Overall, it’s a lovely quick bread and a nice alternative to banana bread rut. It makes a tasty treat for breakfast, after-school snack or potlucks.

It’s tasty on its own, but you can also serve it with butter or cream cheese, or, if you want to go for the ultimate strawberry overload, slather it with some strawberry cream cheese (usually can find it next to the regular). Trust me. It’s SO addictive.

Strawberry bread with strawberry cream cheese. Drool-worthy. 

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Cake

A "back-of-box" recipe, but a reliable classic.

My mom loved this cake. It was our go-to chocolate cake recipe for years. We first found the recipe on the back of the tin of Hershey’s Cocoa (back in the day when cocoa came in a tin), and we kept that old tin around for years to keep the recipe (we never had the presence of mind to actually copy it down). We kept the tin in the pantry, but somehow it would disappear and reappear, get misplaced and found again and every time we found it we would celebrate by baking the cake. Someone would accidentally toss it and we would go out to the store and look for a new one that had both the cake and frosting recipe on it. Once Hershey’s made the label removable, we kept a number of labels squirreled away in drawers and cookbooks so we wouldn’t lose it. It’s an addictive cake, especially the sweet frosting. I remember one Friday after school we made the frosting, but never got to making the cake and just ate the frosting by the spoonful. It was my first cake that I made by myself to take to a social function (Latin club) and it was a hit. Then again, any cake is a hit for Jr. High School kids. Somehow, we stopped making this cake over the years. Maybe our tastes changed, maybe we just had forgotten about it, but we always held fond memories of baking this together. I have a feeling she had a hand in me choosing this recipe first. I’m happy to make for her again. 

The Recipe

Hershey's "Perfectly Chocolate" Cake

2 cups sugar 
3/4 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa 
1-3/4 cups of all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder 
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda 
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup boiling water 

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour two 9 inch round baking pans.

2. Stir together sugar, flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt in large bowl. Add eggs, milk, oil and vanilla; beat on medium speed of mixer 2 minutes. Stir in boiling water (batter will be thin). Pour batter into prepared pans.

3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost with "PERFECTLY CHOCOLATE" CHOCOLATE FROSTING. Makes 11-12 servings.


"Perfectly Chocolate" Chocolate Frosting

1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine

2/3 cup HERSHEY'S Cocoa

3 cups powdered sugar

1/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Melt butter. Stir in cocoa. Alternately add powdered sugar and milk, beating to spreading consistency.

Add small amount additional milk, if needed. Stir in vanilla. About 2 cups frosting.

Variations

CUPCAKES: Line muffin cups (2-1/2 inches in diameter) with paper bake cups. Heat oven to 350°F. Fill cups 2/3 full with batter. Bake 22 to 25 minutes. Cool completely. Frost. About 30 cupcakes.

ONE-PAN CAKE: Grease and flour 13x9x2-inch baking pan. Heat oven to 350° F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 35 to 40 minutes. Cool completely. Frost.

THREE LAYER CAKE: Grease and flour three 8-inch round baking pans. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pans. Bake 30 to 35 minutes. Cool 10 minutes; remove from pans to wire racks. Cool completely. Frost.

BUNDT CAKE: Grease and flour 12-cup fluted tube pan. Heat oven to 350°F. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes. Cool 15 minutes; remove from pan to wire rack. Cool completely. Frost.

The Bake

Super thin batter. Don't panic! 

Overall, this is an easy cake to bake, almost as easy as a boxed cake mix. The directions and ingredients are straightforward and no special techniques are required. There are a couple of keys to ensuring the batter comes out perfectly. Make sure you blend the wet and dry ingredients well when combining, making sure the cocoa isn’t clumpy and the eggs and milk are thoroughly combined. Give it at least two minutes on medium speed. If hand blending, put your weight behind it and stir well. The other key is to make sure when you fold in the boiling water (and yes, it does make a difference, avoid cold water), the batter will be thin. It's okay. Don’t panic and add more flour. If you do, the cake will be dry.

Being that this was the first time I had baked in awhile, and the first cake in this kitchen, I ran into a few baking issues with this cake. 

All three layers of the cake baked a little uneven, sloping down to the left, and the one that was on the left of the oven was the most lopsided. Since they all leaned down to the left, I’m suspecting this is a problem with my oven. It’s either slightly uneven heat, slightly uneven racks, or, slightly uneven kitchen. Since I live in LA in an older apartment building, the latter is most likely the case (we rock here in LA). Being that it is a wall oven and I’m a renter, I may have to get creative in finding ways to fix or compensate. (I have found other issues with my wall oven I will address in later posts).

Mom and I usually made this as a sheet cake or cupcakes. After I had decided to make it a layer cake, I didn’t realize I only had two 8-inch round cake pans instead of two 9-inch. Most conversion charts say you can just use the 8-inch, but I have seen some pretty nasty volcanic creations on some cakes that rose high. I couldn’t remember how high this cake rose and I didn’t want to risk having them overflow, so I baked two and then one after. Turns out, I probably had room to bake it as a 2-layer in 8-inch pans. My third layer was a little short. A great source for calculating cake pan switcheroos: http://dish.allrecipes.com/cake-pan-size-conversions

It has been a long time since I’ve frosted a cake, and I can’t remember the last time I made a layer cake (we never had the patience to wait that long to eat cake). Since it's a classic American buttercream frosting, if you overwork it after it starts to set, it will become a little grainy. I kept fussing with it to try and make it perfect, and it lost the silky shimmer. Note to self: don’t fuss with it so much.

The Results

This cake tastes EXACTLY as I remember. Moist, rich, sweet and oh so good. It’s a little like a fluffy brownie. The frosting adds an extra layer of chocolate sweetness. I usually prefer a less sugary cake (some store-bought cakes are way too sweet for me), but there is something about this one that I don’t mind the sweetness, and subsequent sugar rush after. Seriously. Be forewarned. One slice is close to the sugar equivalent to a Grande Caramel Frappuccino from Starbucks (I calculated it), but nearly half the sugar comes from the frosting, so if you want to avoid that face-plant sugar crash in the middle of binge-watching FARGO, you can keep the frosting light, or skip it all together. However, if you need that extra boost to finish that dream project of organizing your closet by color, season, and moon phase, pile it on. 

It's a great cake for newbie bakers or anyone who wants to avoid buying the boxed cake. Try it and see why it's stood the test of time. 

Not the best frosting job, but at least fully covered. 

I spoiled my dinner on this one!

I also discovered that my kitchen with it's 60's recessed lighting is very shadowy, and downright moody in some spots. Great for cocktail parties, but makes taking pretty pictures difficult. I'll have to find some creative ways to take better pictures on my limited camera equipment budget.