A few months ago, gripped by baking fever, I purchased Mary Berry's Baking Bible. I quickly decided to embark upon a mission to bake everything in the book, and turn myself from an occasional baker into a bit of an expert. My Grandad Ern was a Master Baker by trade; the man responsible for introducing Danish Pastries to England in fact, and I wish it had occurred to me to spend more time learning from him, rather than simply enjoying the fruits of his effortless labours. This project is almost a way of making amends for that; I'd like to follow in his footsteps (if not in my career, at least as a hobby) and continue the proud heritage of baking in my family.
I credit my friend Rachel with the idea to write a blog about my baking exploits, hoping that there will be more successes than failures as I attempt all 213 of the Queen of Baking's recipes.
So as not to bore the husband with a monotonous diet of sponges, followed by weeks of biscuits, I've decided to tackle the recipes by selecting the first bake from each chapter, followed by the second recipe and so on. I'm not going to pick and choose; I'm determined to face my baking demons and learn how to do everything baking-related, even if the consequences are disastrous!
Everything will be photographed, with comment about how I found baking it, and a husband rating (to be taken with a pinch of salt as he has a very selective cake-tooth).


Sunday 22 July 2012

19. Florentines

With some recipes still outstanding from my first list, I nevertheless decided to skip ahead and have a go at these. I'd intended to make them for my parents when they visited a few weeks ago (one of my Mum's favourites) and had the ingredients knocking around, although I was annoyed to find that the mixed peel I'd bought a month or two ago was BBE July 2011! I'm fairly reasonable about best before dates, but a year out is a bit much, I feel! This was one of a few adjustments made to Mary's recipe: I do want to do everything 'by the book', but I think it's a good thing that I've developed a bit of confidence and my own know-how so that if I need to be flexible with a few ingredients here and there, I can be. I'm also discovering some useful prep methods, like using the mezzaluna to chop nuts with: much more efficient than fiddling about with a knife.

 
Instead of the mixed peel, I just increased the quantity of glace cherries, to match the intended total quantity of fruit. I'm not a big fan of citrus peel anyway, so this was a modification I think I'd stick with in future. I'd always thought Florentines would be difficult to make; Mary makes the point that an accurate set of scales is a must, and I didn't have any technical problems at all.
At first I thought three baking trays seemed a bit excessive for the quantity of mixture, but as you can see from the before/after pictures on the left, they really did spread out in the oven. The recipe did make 20 biscuits as suggested - again, something I was a bit sceptical about.
The smell of melted butter and sugar (and golden syrup) is always divine, but the smell emanating from the oven as the biscuits baked was something else. It was fascinating to see them spread out and bubble away, and I couldn't wait to eat them. They were very easy to remove from the trays; I let them cool for about 3 minutes before sliding them off with a palette knife and placing them on the rack.
After about 30 minutes of cooling, I melted the chocolate. I used milk instead of plain, because Mum's not a fan of dark chocolate and so I hadn't bought any for making them a few weeks ago. I'd try them with dark in the future as it probably cuts through the sweetness a bit and makes more of a contrast, but they're certainly very tasty coated in milk chocolate! One thing that did confuse me is why there's a need to make a zig-zag on the chocolate after coating the underside of the biscuits. I did it a few times and couldn't see the point! I put the biscuits in the fridge to allow the chocolate to set in a fly-free environment, and we ate the first ones cold, which were very nice. The end result is a toffee-like, chewy, slightly crunchy biscuit.

Baker's verdict: easy and fun to make. I'll definitely make these again, even though there are quite a few processes. Very tasty and pretty moreish!
Husband rating: 7.5/10. Really tasty but just a bit too sweet for me.
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2 comments:

  1. Self Raising Flower23 July 2012 at 05:10

    Wow, they look great, I've yet to make these from the book, but think I will give them a go soon!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sally Jordan23 July 2012 at 12:20

    The photos don't really do them justice! I was amazed by how easy they were to make and they tasted really lovely.

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