Homemade Florentines dipped in dark chocolate are incredible easy to make and taste divine! I love making these around Christmas time and they are always a hit among my family and friends. All you need is a handful of ingredients an hour of free time and you will not be disappointed with the results!
How do you make Florentines?
Florentines are very easy to make at home! They are essentially just made from nuts that are tossed in a sugary syrup, before being baked, cooled, and dipped in chocolate! For this very simple variety, I have used butter, honey, and sugar to make a syrup, and used a mix of flaked and chopped almonds for the nuts. However, Florentines are extremely versatile, and you can play around with this recipe if you desire. You could use a whole range of different nuts, or even a combination of some, and adding some dried fruits to Florentines can also be a nice addition. In the summer, I like to make Florentines with Peanuts and Dried Apricots for which you can find the recipe here. Other good suggestions for nuts might be a mix of almonds and hazelnuts, or adding dried cranberries to the mix!
More Christmas Baking Recipes
Baking around Christmas time is so much fun – I absolutely love it! Having grown up in Germany, baking Christmas biscuits, aka “Plätzchen” is high up on my list of December priorities! Check out some of my favourite recipes below and give them a try!
- Vanilla Crescents | “Vanillekipferl”
- Traditional Scottish Shortbread Recipe
- Gingerbread Men
- Hazelnut Shortbread with Dark Chocolate “Haselnussbrot”
- Chocolate Orange Crescents | Schoko Orangen Kipferl
- Coconut Macarons | Kokosmakronen
- Spritzgebäck | German Piped Christmas Biscuits
- German “Baumkuchenspitzen” with Rum
- Salted Peanut and Apricot Florentines
- Christmas Light Cookies
- Coconut Star Christmas Biscuits
- German Schwarz-Weiß Gebäck | Checkerboard and Pinwheel Biscuits
- German Lebkuchen (Elisenlebkuchen) | Traditional German Gingerbread
Homemade Florentines | Easy Christmas Baking Recipe
Recipe
Ingredients:
FOR THE FLORENTINE MIX
- 50g butter
- 60g caster sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 50g runny honey
- 100g flaked almonds
- 100g blanched almonds, roughly chopped
TO DECORATE
- 100-150g dark chocolate
Method:
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/160°C fan and line two large baking trays with baking paper.
- Next, weigh the butter, caster sugar, vanilla extract and honey into a small saucepan and place of a low-medium heat. Gently warm until the butter has melted, then increase the heat and stir until the sugar has melted and the mixture has just come to the boil.
- Tip in the flaked and roughly chopped blanched almonds and cook over a medium heat for 2-3 minutes, stirring frequently, until the mixture is lightly golden.
- Remove the Florentine mix from the heat and dollop small amounts of the mixture onto the baking tray. Make sure you use small amounts and space them well apart, as the Florentines will spread while baking.
- Bake the Florentines in the preheated oven for about 5 minutes until spread out and golden, then remove from the oven. The mix will still be soft and bubbling when you remove it from the oven, but the Florentines will harden as they cool. Set aside and leave to cool completely before peeling them off the baking paper.
- To decorate, set a heatproof (ideally glass) bowl over a pot of gently simmering water, making sure the bowl isn’t touching the water. Gently melt the dark chocolate in the bowl, then dip the underside of each Florentine in the dark chocolate. You may wish to trim the Florentines with a sharp knife if they are slightly misshapen or you would like them to be perfectly round.
- Lay the Florentines on a sheet of baking paper (you can reuse the paper you baked them on) with the chocolate side facing up. For a fancy touch, you can use a fork to create squiggly lines in the chocolate to create a pattern.
- Wait until the chocolate has set completely before storing the Florentines in an air-tight tin (if you can resist from eating them all then and there XD).
