Sorry it’s taken a while to getting round to posting this, but I wanted to put Helen’s Florentines on here. They always taste great, and that’s coming from someone who does’t have a particularly sweet tooth. For some reason they always remind me of Christmas, I don’t know why particularly, maybe it’s the colours of the glacé fruits she uses.

They were made as a ‘secret Santa’ gift and from what I gather they were well received, and rightly so as I love them. So I present, via Nigella’s Domestic Goddess cookbook, Helen’s Florentines:

Ingredients:

• 100g sliced almonds
• 150g mixed glaced fruit and candied peel, chopped
• 25g butter (unsalted)
• 90g brown sugar
• 15g plain flour
• 150ml double cream
• 200g belgian milk chocolate (to dip in)

Get the oven on and set it to180°C/350°F/Gask 5.

Start by melting the sugar and butter together in a pan and then mix in the flour to make a ball, it should be very smooth so mix it well. Add the double cream and again, mix well to remove any lumps.

Mix in the fruit and nuts and stir to combine it all.

Line a baking tray or two (depending on how big it is) with greaseproof paper or silicon sheets. Spoon a tablespoon full of the mixture onto the paper – don’t worry about it forming a ‘mound’ it will melt and spread in the oven. Add another far enough away from the first bearing in mind it will spread out. Repeat using all the mixture up.

Bake in the oven for about 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown.

Remove from the oven and leave to cool thoroughly, on a rack preferably  (but leave them to cool on the baking tray slightly first or they be to difficult to move). Whilst cooling, put the kettle on to boil some water….

Melt the chocolate by either a) melting it in a glass bowl sat over (not touching) a pan of simmering water, or b) microwaving it gently.

Helen only covers half of the Florentine in chocolate as it’s easier to hold that way and you don’t end up with it on your fingers – just either dip it in the chocolate or paint it on using the back of a spoon or pastry brush.

Leave them to cool on a rack again.