#208 Chocolate Florentines

Trader Joes makes awesome cookies. From the addiction Joe Joes to the scrumptious Swiss Almond Crunch cookies. But my all time favorite are their dark chocolate and almond Florentines. It's a buttery thin prailien like cookie with a rich dark chocolate coating on the bottom. I purposely don't buy them cause I will litterly eat them all by myself and because I'm trying to do better with my sugar addiction (I know, a baker curving her sugar addicion. Ironic I know) I just stay away from it. But that didn't last for too long when I saw a recipe for Chocolate Florentines in my new cook book 1001 Cupcakes Cookies & Other Tempting Treats. As soon as I saw it I had to make it.

There were a few ingredients in the recipe that I didn't have on hand or particularly liked, so I made a few changes to the recipe. The recipe called for dried cherries to be added and candied peel, but I didn't have neither of the two, so I omitted it. Plus and I really wanted to replicate my favorite Trader Joe cookies so I also used pecans instead of slivered almonds.  

End Result: The cookies didn't quite come out like the ones from Trader Joes, Booo! Which in retrospect, it could of been totally my fault and not the recipe. I believe I cooked the cookies too long, cause they didn't have that chewy texture in the middle like the ones from Trader Joes. Instead mine came out really crispy. This cookie dough is thick but it spreads out really thin so you have to be careful on how long you keep it in the oven.  I may of gotten better results if I took them out around 6-7 minutes instead of 8-10. The flavors of the cookie were almost spot on, just a bit too crunchy for me. (Deep sigh) I'll keep working at it. 

At least the cookie had one other fan besides myself. 

Chocolate Florentines
Adaptation Courtesy of 1001 cupcakes, cookies & other tempting treats

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 tbsp unsalted butter
• 4 tbsp superfine sugar
• 1 tbsp dark corn syrup
• heaping 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/2 cup of pecan pieces  
• 6 oz/175 g semisweet , chopped. 

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Heat the butter, sugar, and corn syrup together in a saucepan ore low heat until the butter is melted and the sugar is dissolved. Stir in the flour, and pecans.

Make the Florentines in batches. Place heaped teaspoons of the mixture on the baking sheets, spaced well apart, and flatten slightly with the back of a spoon. Bake the preheated oven for 8-10 minutes, or until gold brown. Let cool on the baking sheets for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack and leave until cold. Repeat until you have 20 florentines.

Place the chocolate in a heatproof bowl, set the bowl over a saucepan of gently simmering water, and the heat until melted. Using a pastry brush, spread the chocolate over the bottom of each florentine and place chocolate-side  up on a wire rack to cool and set. Enjoy.