Hey everyone
With the Summer comes copious amounts of pots of English tea - how very British, as is a lovely biscuit or two to go with them.
It could be quite easy for me to recommend a shortbread recipe, but how about something a bit more luxurious. Something that we wouldn’t want to dip in our tea, rather just savour, enjoy and accompany that lovely cuppa! Chocolate florentines anyone?
Ingredients
2 tbsp butter
75g caster sugar
2 tsp plain flour
75ml crème fraiche
30g flaked almonds, toasted
30g nibbed pistachio nuts
2 tbsp mixed candied peel
2 tbsp chopped crystallised stem ginger
Pinch ofground cinnamon
50g dried sour cherries
150g dark chocolate, broken into pieces
Method
1) Preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4 and line two baking trays with greaseproof or baking paper.
2) Heat the butter, sugar and flour together in a heavy-based pan until the sugar has dissolved. Remove from the heat and stir in the crème fraîche, almonds, pistachios, candied peel, ginger, cinnamon and sour cherries and mix well until combined.
3) Drop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the prepared trays, spacing them out well, to allow for spreading.
4) Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until golden-brown. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. (You can scrape in the edges a little to neaten while they are still hot, if necessary.)
5) Put the chocolate into a small heatproof bowl and melt it over a saucepan of barely simmering water, or very gently in the microwave. Stir the melted chocolate until smooth then mix in a pinch of sea salt flakes.
6) Turn the florentines so that the flat base is facing upwards. Drizzle the melted chocolate over the bases and set aside to cool and set, before serving.
