Another world classic, personal favourite of my mom. A beautiful pastry dough, topped with a caramel-nutty-like mixture, finished with a chocolate. So incredibly yummy and comforting – My Florentine Cookies.
Total Time: 1 day
Shopping List
The Dough:
90g of butter, soft
170g icing sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon of ground ginger
1 tablespoon of milk
1 whole egg
125g of plain flour, sifted
80g of ground walnuts
The Topping:
25g of butter
50g of caster superfine sugar
1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar
1 tablespoon of good quality honey
80ml of double cream
50g of almond flakes
50g of hazelnuts, hardly chopped
25g of raisins, hardly chopped
50g of good quality dark chocolate
Instructions
The Dough
Prepare the dough 1 day ahead. In a large mixing bowl whisk the butter, sugar and ginger until foamy. Then add milk and egg, and whisk some more until you get a smooth texture and sugar is dissolved.
Add flour, walnuts and whisk until it becomes one homogeneous texture.
Wrap the dough in a cling foil and set in the fridge overnight.
Next day, preheat the oven to 180 degrees.
Bring the dough to a room temperature. Break small piece of the dough and create a ball from it. Flatter with your palm and gently place on a baking tray lined with a baking paper. Continue until there is no dough left.
Bake them in the oven for about 10 minutes until lightly golden. Take them out and let them cool down completely.
The Topping
Place the butter in a small deep pan on medium heat.
First, melt the butter.
Then, add sugars and honey and stir until the mixture gets lightly brown.
Pour in the double cream and continue mixing until the sugars are dissolved completely.
Next, stir in all the nuts (hazelnuts and almonds) and raisins. Continue stirring until it becomes a sticky mixture (for about 10 minutes). Take off the heat and let it cool down.
Meanwhile, in a steam bath, melt the chocolate. Add little bit of double cream at a time and mix until it becomes smooth and shiny texture.
Once the cookies are cooled down, therefore, ready to decorate, place one teaspoon of nutty mixture in the middle of each of them. Continue with all of them.
Finish with a chocolate drizzle. Let them dry and store them in a cold place. Enjoy!
Makes 35 pieces.