Florentines with Dark Chocolate

Florentines are the biscuit that makes people think you have hidden depths. They look like something bought from a smart delicatessen, all lacy amber caramel and jewelled fruit under a comb of dark chocolate, and yet they are one of the simplest things you can bake: a caramel melted in a pan, stirred through with nuts and fruit, spooned out, and baked into thin, crackling discs. There is no dough to chill, no rolling, no rest. From standing start to a rack full of them is under half an hour, and the only remotely fiddly bit is the chocolate at the end.

My twist is at the very beginning of the pan. I brown the butter before the sugar and syrup go in, and I stir a quarter-teaspoon of ground cardamom into the hot caramel. Browning the butter gives the caramel a deeper, more toffee-like base, and cardamom, with its resinous, faintly citrus-eucalyptus perfume, is a natural friend to both orange and almond, the two flavours that already define a florentine. Together they lift the biscuit from sweet-and-nutty to something more fragrant and grown-up, and the cardamom in particular makes people pause and ask what the flavour is that they cannot quite place. Cardamom is worth buying whole and grinding for this if you can, because pre-ground cardamom fades quickly and the whole point of the twist is that fleeting, aromatic top note. Crush the seeds from a few green pods in a mortar and you will get far more perfume from a quarter-teaspoon than a tired jar could ever give.

Not actually from Florence

The name is a small historical joke, because florentines have very little to do with Florence. The most convincing account is that they were created in French patisserie kitchens and named, in the eighteenth-century fashion, with an Italianate flourish to sound elegant and continental, much as we still name dishes today. What is certainly true is that they belong to the tradition of European confectionery biscuits that sit somewhere between a sweet and a biscuit, close relatives of brittle and praline, built on caramelised sugar and toasted nuts.

They became a fixture of the British Christmas biscuit tin in the twentieth century, sold boxed and expensive, which is where most people first met them and why they still carry that air of a treat. The classic combination of almonds, candied peel and glace cherries is not sentiment: the almonds bring toasted fat and crunch, the candied orange peel a chewy bitterness that cuts the sweetness, and the cherries a jammy pop of colour. Get good candied peel, the kind sold in whole pieces to chop yourself rather than the sad tubs of pre-diced stuff, and the difference to the finished biscuit is enormous. The almonds deserve a moment of thought too. Flaked almonds are traditional and give the classic lacy, overlapping look, but crushing a portion of them roughly, as in the recipe here, builds a better texture: the fine bits melt into the caramel while the larger flakes stay proud and crunchy. Toasting is unnecessary because they colour plenty in the oven, and pre-toasted almonds can tip over into bitter by the time the caramel is deep gold.

The science of the lace

What makes a florentine lacy rather than a solid puck of biscuit is the ratio of sugar and syrup to flour. There is very little flour here, just enough to bind, so as the biscuits bake the caramel melts, spreads and bubbles into an open, holey lattice, and the golden syrup, which contains invert sugars that resist crystallising, keeps that lattice from setting hard and grainy. There is a reason confectioners reach for glucose or golden syrup rather than plain sugar in a brittle like this: the invert sugars physically get in the way of the sucrose crystals trying to line up, so the caramel sets smooth and glassy instead of grainy and dull. It is the same chemistry that keeps a good fudge silky, and it is why you should resist any urge to substitute the golden syrup with extra caster sugar to make the biscuits crisper. They will only turn sandy. This is why they must be spaced generously on the tray; a spoonful the size of a hazelnut will spread to a biscuit the width of a plum. Temperature discipline in the pan is the thing that separates a good florentine from a grainy one. Once the sugar and syrup are in, you want them dissolved and just bubbling, no more; take the caramel too far and it will crystallise or turn bitter, and the finished biscuits will taste of burnt sugar rather than toffee. As soon as it is smooth and glossy, pull it off the heat and start adding the dry things, working quickly before the mixture stiffens as it cools.

Use baking parchment rather than greaseproof paper, or they will weld themselves to it permanently. Bake until they are an even, deep gold all over, because underbaked florentines stay pale and cakey in the centre and never crisp up, while a good deep colour gives you that shattering, brittle-toffee snap. The window is narrow, so watch the last two minutes closely; the edges darken first and the centres catch up fast.

The one genuinely useful trick is the hot cutter. Florentines rarely spread into tidy circles on their own, and if you slide a greased round cutter over each one the moment it comes out of the oven and swirl it gently, you tuck the ragged edges back into a neat disc while the caramel is still soft. Ten seconds each, and they look shop-bought. A common frustration is florentines that spread into each other and fuse at the edges. The cause is almost always crowding the tray, so err on the side of too few per sheet and bake in batches; six to a standard sheet is plenty. If they do run together, wait until they have firmed for a minute, then cut between them with a sharp knife while still warm and pliable, before they set brittle and shatter.

Chocolate, storage and variations

Dark chocolate is traditional and correct, because the biscuit is already sweet and needs the bitter counterweight. If you can temper the chocolate, it will set with a proper snap and shine and will not bloom to a dull grey in the tin; if tempering feels like a step too far, melting it gently and letting it set in a cool room is perfectly acceptable for biscuits eaten within a few days. The forked comb pattern on the chocolate side is the signature, and it is genuinely just a fork dragged in wavy lines before the chocolate sets.

Kept somewhere cool and dry in an airtight tin, layered between parchment, florentines stay crisp for about a week; they soften if the air is humid, so do not make them on a steamy day and leave them out. They do not freeze well, as the caramel picks up moisture on thawing. For variations, chopped pistachios and dried cranberries make a beautiful red-and-green Christmas version, a little chopped stem ginger in the mix is lovely, and a scrape of flaky sea salt on the chocolate before it sets pushes them towards the salted-caramel register. If you enjoy this kind of buttery, caramel-edged biscuit, the palmiers with caramelised sugar work the same magic with puff pastry, and for a completely different but equally impressive teatime biscuit, the buttery petticoat tails Scottish shortbread make the ideal plainer companion on the same plate. Serve florentines with coffee at the end of a meal, and accept the compliments graciously.