These were ok.
Not exactly a glowing recommendation, but I promise I will never be anything but honest with you when it comes to the recipes you find here. These were exactly the way I expected they would be – a delicate, crispy, caramelly almond brittle cookie. So if that sounds good to you, you should totally make these! In fact, others who tried these actually liked them quite a bit more than ok, and they disappeared in record time.
But for me, I just love soft, chewy cookies oh so very much, and anything called a cookie that doesn’t have those features is just not going to be a #1 winner in my books. Perhaps if we called this Lacy Almond Brittle it would be a different story. That is a lovely name for a lovely treat, and that is something I would make again. Consider these officially renamed.
Or we can just call them Florentines, which is apparently also acceptable, and also quite a pretty name.
These do have a lot of winning features – they’re delicate and super pretty, and they come together in a matter of minutes. They’re a classic (apparently! I can’t say I had ever heard of them, but that doesn’t mean much :)) and they take very few ingredients, although many call for dried fruit, which I didn’t include. I’m glad I tried them just because now I know what they are, and what they taste like, and it’s important to learn something new every day. And ok, I also ate more than my fair share of the sweet crispy critters.
So tell me, have you had florentines before? Had you at least heard of them? If you want to try new things, you should join us for First on the First, it’s fun to get out of your comfort zone in the kitchen :)
- 1¼ cups sliced almonds
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 2½ teaspoons finely grated orange or lemon zest
- ⅓ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (4 tablespoons) butter
- ¼ cup light corn syrup
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream (I used 2% milk without a problem)
- ¼ teaspoon fine salt
- 4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips (optional)
- Heat the oven to 350°F and arrange the racks to divide the oven into thirds. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (or grease VERY thoroughly) and set aside.
- In a small bowl, toss together the almonds, flour, and zest with a wooden spoon; set aside.
- Place the sugar, butter, corn syrup, cream, and salt in a small saucepan over medium heat. Stir to combine, and bring to a boil. As soon as it comes to a boil, remove the pan from the heat, add the almond mixture, and stir to coat evenly.
- Drop heaping teaspoonfuls of the batter AT LEAST 3 inches apart onto the prepared baking sheets, 6 per sheet (they will spread during baking - don't try to fit more or you'll have a giant lacey puddle!). Using a rubber spatula, pat the batter out into 2-inch-wide circles, spreading the almonds into a fairly even single layer.
- Place both sheets in the oven and bake for 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheets front to back and top to bottom and bake until the florentines are light golden brown around the edges, about 3-4 minutes more.
- Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 2 minutes. Carefully remove from the baking sheets with a thin metal spatula and transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Repeat with the remaining batter. Allow cookies to cool before drizzling with chocolate - save the parchment paper for when you do the drizzle.
- Place the reserved parchment sheets under the cooling rack or put the cooled cookies directly on the reserved parchment sheets. Melt the chocolate chips in a small saucepan over low heat or in the microwave in short increments, stirring frequently. Dip a fork into the chocolate and drizzle it over the florentines in a zigzag pattern.
- Let the cookies sit until the chocolate has set, about 30 minutes. Store the florentines in an airtight container at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 5 days.
Recipe adapted from Chow.com
Check out the other florentines below from the rest of the talented participants!
i like their name too… it sounds so sophisticated…heheh.
they are also so pretty with that lace-like pattern!
well they certainly look fantastic
My boyfriend loves this kind of cookies! Once I get my new recipe search engine website up and running, this is the kind of recipe I’d love to feature :) We’re not online yet, but please check out our Kickstarter campaign in the meantime:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2144869982/spoonacular-making-the-web-a-tastier-place/
P.S. We’re developing some cool tools for bloggers that you might be interested in too :)
Your cookies turned out beautiful! I used a similar recipe and mine turned out chewy instead of crispy like yours..I wonder why?! Either way, great job this month!
Interesting! Maybe you cooked them for less time?
I love florentines. They bring me back to a memory of a best friend in California. You have to look at these as more of a candy cookie. I think you did a splendid job, and makes me hungry for them right now.
Your florentines look like lacy perfection! Great job! I had such difficulty with mine and I just don’t know why but I broke mine into pieces and did indeed call it brittle ;) Thank for joining us again! Can’t wait to see your cake decorating skills next month.
The ones I baked on my regular cookie sheet merged into one sheet of cookie, but the ones on my air-insulated sheet stayed much more separate…maybe the heat distribution wasn’t quite right? Regardless, they taste just as good either way!
Interesting… maybe the air insulated cookie sheets are the key? Regardless, great job–the ones you posted look perfect! Thanks for trying them even though they didn’t wow you!
They look perfect…very pretty! But like you, I love my cookies chewy. When you asked me about these, I was trying to think of the other classic I had never tried but didn’t come up it with at the time. And then I saw the special pan and remembered…madileines. I thought I should try them until I saw the price of the special pan…more than $30 for a pan that makes 12 cookies! Oh well, I will wait until someone else makes them :)