Recipe: Sweet and easy Florentines

Planning to do a little baking as a family day activity?

Try these easy to make Florentines.

Florentines are a classic Italian sweet pastry made with nuts mixed with sugar and melted together, often coated on the bottom in chocolate.

It’s a great treat to prepare with the whole family. Kids will love how easy they are to make, the crunchy texture and the chocolate dip. Parents will love the classic flavours and how well they pair with coffee or tea.

Elena Krasanova, head pastry chef and owner of Mon Paris Pâtisserie shares her recipe here.

Ingredients

Florentine

• 2 egg whites
• 100 g icing sugar
• 260 g shaved almonds
• Grated zest of one orange

Chocolate dip

• 1kg chocolate (we use Cacao Barry 64 per cent dark at Mon Paris)

Method

Florentine

1. Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix by hand.
2. With clean hands, first dip one hand in a bowl of room temperature water, and then pick up a portion of the mix to make little teaspoon mounds on a lined tray. Mounds should be well spaced apart.
3. Dip a fork in the water and flatten each portion very thinly.
4. Bake 12 min at 150 C.
5. Cool down completely before dipping into chocolate.
6. One cookie at time, dip the cooled Florentines in the chocolate with a fork.
7. Place on parchment paper to cool.

Chocolate dip

1. Divide approximately 1 kg of chocolate into 3 parts.
2. Melt two parts in a microwave completely, melting one minute at time, stirring after each minute until chocolate is completely melted and at least 50 C. 
3. Add the third part of chocolate into the melted chocolate and stir constantly until melted (do not return to microwave). This will take at least 5 minutes of continuous stirring.