Festive Florentines…
As I wrote in my first cookbook – and to quote Mark Twain – “there is no such thing as a new idea. We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope. We give them a turn, and they make new and curious combinations.”
It’s something I do a lot at Number Thirteen – take a recipe, then tweak and change it to suit my needs. It doesn’t always work, but when it does, it usually creates something wonderful. If we ever use someone else’s recipe, and it works out well, we always give them a shout out, but to be honest, recently I have been playing around a lot with new recipes and writing them from scratch.
I read somewhere once that if you find a recipe and change it in at least 5 ways, you can claim it as your own creation, but as I also say in my cookbook, I will never assume that I am the first person to think of a particular idea. Baking is as much a science as it is a creative outlet, and it requires a certain amount of adherence of rules and ratios, so there is only so much tweaking you can do if you want the recipe to actually work. This summer I’ve been focussed on some more wacky cakes – things like our Spinach & Orange Cake or our Baked Bean Cake; and found some fabulous recipes that I have tweaked to within an inch of their lives, and many of them are now nothing like the original recipe. I’ve made many of them dairy-free, gluten-free and vegan too, as well as swapping out flavours and flour types to test different textures – it's been great fun!
I have been thinking a lot recently about recipe development and new bakes. Just to add - I am not ready to bring out another cookbook – that is at least another year away I would think, so apologies if I got your hopes up. No, to be honest it’s because the Christmas season always tests my creative ability, due to the fact that I really don’t like mincemeat, or Christmas cake, or Christmas Pudding, or alcohol in baking generally – all things that crop up absurdly often at Christmastime. This means that I am always trying to discover new things to make, that still feel festive; but aren’t just another mince pie.
Of course, we still have mince pies (courtesy of Manna Bakery in Harrogate) and traditional fruit cake at the coffee shop, but we also have other things too. Since our first Christmas we have had Mincemeat Crumble Slices (as I am rubbish at pastry), which has also developed into Mince pie Frangipane in recent years. We have Peppermint Slice, scattered with crushed candy canes; Cranberry, Orange and White Chocolate Flapjacks, and as recently as last year we introduced Nutcracker Cake (one of the rare instances when I’ve not minded alcohol in a cake, as it's made with Frangelico). As a side note - we found the nutcracker cake recipe in the Exploding Bakery’s cookbook ‘Bake It, Slice It, Eat It’ and would highly recommend the book to anyone who likes our recipes. We have used this book for countless bakes and not had a dud yet!
This season I haven’t been feeling very inspired, truth be told, and just thought I would ask around and see what other people considered festive enough to feature at Christmas. One of our team members (Becky) suggested Florentines, but the way Betty’s do them. Anyone that lives in Yorkshire, and possibly England, has heard of Betty’s - it’s a bit of an institution. However, I would say that Betty’s creations are a bit too fancy for my own baking sensibilities. I am a very unfussy baker, and strive for ease, speed and simplicity in my baking. Making little discs of caramel covered nuts and fruit, dipping them in chocolate and doing fancy patterns with a fork just isn’t my thing, but taking the flavours and raw elements and giving it a Number Thirteen twist, that is something I could do.
We already have a Coconut Florentine on the rotation (see our first cookbook for the recipe) but that version is more in the Antipodean style, rather than the European, which requires the chocolate bottom to be baked along with the fruit and nuts. I thought I would try using that method, and rather than using condensed milk as the binding agent, to use caramel instead, making it more like the Betty’s version Becky loves so much.
I also decided to completely swap the fruit and nuts, so the new florentine had a more festive feel. I used flaked almonds and cornflakes as the crunch element, but then added mixed orange peel, chopped pistachios, dried sour cherries, dried cranberries, and crystallised ginger, all wrapped in a homemade caramel (vegan friendly too!).
The result was something much more decadent than our usual florentine, which although isn’t sugar free, at least tries to be slightly more healthy. Our Festive Florentine is sweet, chewy and full of flavour, a true Christmas treat.
I’ve added the recipe below, if you want to have a go at making it yourself. The caramel recipe is great for all number of different things, including pouring over ice cream, adding to brownies and cakes, or to make your own caramel slices!
Festive Florentines
Ingredients:
Caramel -
150g dairy free butter
150g light soft brown sugar
100g golden syrup
1 can condensed milk (approx 340g) (vegan if necessary)
60g plain flour (GF if necessary)
Main Florentine -
250g dark chocolate
100g flaked almonds
100g gluten free cornflakes (or normal if needed)
175g chopped dried sour cherries
150g cranberries
100g mixed orange peel
75g chopped pistachios
100g chopped crystallised ginger
1 portion of caramel – see above
Method:
Preheat oven to 180 degrees C and line a 20x30cm brownie tin with parchment paper.
Melt the chocolate in a microwave, and pour onto the prepared paper, spreading and levelling out over the entire surface. Set aside to cool while making the other elements.
To make the caramel, melt the butter in a heavy bottomed saucepan on a medium heat, add the sugar, syrup and condensed milk. Mix until fully combined, add the flour, stir until fully combined again, then turn down the heat.
Stir slowly until the mixture is bubbling. Stirring all the time the caramel is on the heat, until thick and golden. This will take about 5-10 minutes. The hot caramel will be a lot more fluid than when it is cooled, so don’t worry if it doesn’t feel quite thick enough.
Once thick and golden in colour. Remove from the heat and leave to cool slightly. Do not be tempted to dip your finger in to taste – it is well above 100 degrees at this point.
Add all other ingredients into a separate large bowl and mix well.
Pour the slightly cooled caramel, still being cautious, onto the dry mix and stir until fully combined and sticky.
Spread the mixture over the set chocolate base, and press down, levelling out as you go. I use a spatula or palette knife for this.
Bake in the oven for about 15-20 minutes. The caramel will be bubbling when you take it out of the oven, and the top will be deep golden in colour. Leave to cool slightly before pressing the surface down with the spatula again.
Leave to cool completely before removing from the tin, as the chocolate will need to be fully set to hold its shape. Then cut into your desired portions.