You know when you’ve done something before, you feel more than confident that you will be able to do it again without any problems? This is how I felt entering this challenge, and continued to feel for most of the bake, right up until the chocolate part.  Chocolate it not my friend, whether that is to my hips or trying to temper the stuff!  I can sometimes get a little impatient when it comes to finishing a bake, I just want to get it finished so that I can share, eat or simply move onto the next task.  This attitude is often not conducive to a creative baker, as it can lead to disasters.  The disaster on this challenge was definitely the chocolate.

Some may think that the complicated part of a Florentine recipe would be the sugary caramel mix that is the main body this snappy little delicacy, but I found this part the easiest.  I have to admit something here, I have gone against one of my challenge rules:

1. Use the same ingredients as stated in the recipe, no substitutes are allowed

This rule breaking is strictly medical. I am not a big lover of walnuts, and other than my dad, most of my family are against them, with my sister saying “Walnuts! No one like walnuts, don’t ever bother with them!” Walnuts are one of the few foods that I have an allergic reaction to, resulting in the inside of my mouth and lips become really itchy!  It can be really annoying, not only because of how uncomfortable it feels, but because I end up making faces that make me look like a monkey doing facial exercises! But back to the rule breaking, instead of the walnuts I used hazelnuts instead, much better with chocolate, especially if you think of Nutella!

Every thing for these bejewelled beauties has to be chopped, right down to the cranberries (which I nearly forgot and had to pick out before I mixed it all together)! The important thing to remember is not to use the mini electric chopper. This wonderful gadget is great when it comes to dressings and mini sauces, but for these nuts it chops them too finely.

Once everything was measured and chopped, it was all mixed into the melted butter, syrup and sugar mix.

Now came the tricky bit, portioning it out into 18 even spoonfuls. It’s probably best to measure them all out, like some of the contestants did on the show, but I decided to gauge it by eye and spoon! With 18 little discs measured and space out on 3 sheets of baking parchment, they went into the oven for 10 minutes, with a tray rotation half way through.

It was important to keep a close eye on the time well as the Florentines, as you want them all to be the same colour, which can turn very quickly leaving you with a bitter caramel.

Leaving the Florentines to cool and harden it was time to face my nemesis, chocolate. The first part was easy, melting it in a bowl over a pan of boiling water. It was the cooling down that gets me. After a waiting what felt like absolute age, I covered only 3 Florentines with it dripping through the lacy holes, so I resorted to putting it in the fridge for a few minutes.BAD IDEA! When I took it out it had started to harden and go lumpy, there was no spreading going to happen with it in that state. So, it was back to the hob to re-melt the chocolate, and repeat the whole process! In the end I have decided that not only do I need to some more practice in chocolate tempering, but I need to buy one of those fancy digital thermometers! Both of which will be a pricey investment.

The end result for this technical gave me 18 florentines which were lacy, nicely coloured and had a good snap, but needed a bit more attention needed for the chocolate. The most important thing to note though, they tasted delicious!