As their name suggests, florentines have their roots in Italy, but are now more associated with French pastry.
Nuts, fruit and the ommission of flour from the list of ingredients are their main characteristics and their chewiness makes them stand out from many of their less pedigreed counterparts.
I'd suggest making them for a special occasion or as a gift for a loved one, though they can also be paired with coffee for an after-dinner treat.
Apricot and almond florentines
Makes about 20
Vegetable oil, for brushing
2 free-range eggs, whites only
100g icing sugar
260g flaked almonds
Grated zest of 1 orange
100g dried apricots, roughly chopped
Set the oven to 150C/gas mark 2.
Line a heavy baking tray with baking parchment and brush it lightly with vegetable oil. Prepare a small bowl of cold water and place it on the worktop.
Put the egg whites, icing sugar, flaked almonds and orange zest in a bowl and gently mix them together. Dip your hand in the bowl of water and pick up portions of the mix to make little mounds on the lined tray, spaced well apart. Dip a fork in the water and use it to flatten each biscuit very thinly. Try to make them as thin as possible without creating too many gaps between the almond flakes. They should be about 8cm in diameter. Lastly, place around four pieces of chopped apricot on top of each florentine.
Bake the biscuits for 12-15 minutes until they're are golden brown. Check the base of one biscuit to make sure they are cooked through.
Allow the Florentines to cool then gently lift the biscuits off the baking sheet with a palette knife. Place them in a cool area to set then store them in a sealed, air-tight jar.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article