Florentines

The first time I ever heard of Florentines was when I was watching the Great British Bake Off.  I thought way back to the time I tried to make something that was similar.  Back in 2009 I tried to make some sugar snaps basket(or brandy snaps) for my aunt's birthday party.  I never made it again, I thought they were too 'weird', too sweet, too oily (thinking back, I might have under baked them).  

I've also compared the recipe for brandy snaps and florentines just to see what made them different.  From what I've read, it seems like florentines are usually mixed with nuts and dried fruits, while brandy snaps doesn't, and have additional flavors such as (duh)brandy and warming spices.  Although both of them tends to be finished off with chocolate.  I guess caramel and chocolate are just the perfect pair huh.

So here I am, trying to attempt this whole lace-ey sugar-ey thing once more.  

I decided to go with Banana this time, because I didn't have any dried fruits at home.  My brother likes banana.  Banana goes well with chocolate.  Everybody wins. 

Now I know this isn't the traditional way to make florentines, but I don't have molasses so I resulted to using Carnation's florentines instead.

• 25g butter
• 25g light brown soft sugar
• 100g Carnation Condensed Milk
• 2tsp plain flour
• 150g mixed dried fruit and nuts such as apricots, cranberries, toasted flaked almonds, desiccated coconut etc. -- in this recipe I used a mixture between sun-dried bananas, walnuts, almonds, and pecans.
• 85g dark chocolate

I grabbed some nuts I have in the freezer and threw them in too :) 

Alright here we have the butter and the sugar.  I weighted them wit the scale.  And then I attempted to microwave it.

 

 

Which was a pretty stupid attempt considering how the sugar just melt and clump together into a horrible mess.  So I decided to switch to the classic stove top.  Medium heat please.

 

Condensed milk timeee

 Aw yis.

Yassss

O
M
G

Look at that butt-er
^ayyy

 Now lets make this a dough.

 Dump and keep stirring until you get this.  Cook the flour.  Turn off the heat.

Time for the mixed ins!  

Divide them evenly and roll into balls.  I shaped them while they were pretty hot and burned myself. Don't be stupid like me.  I found it helpful to oil your hands before handling them, its not such a sticky batter, but it just makes life a lot easier. Then bake them at 180°C for 13 minutes or until it stops bubbling.  

 

 Melt some chocolate.
My tempering skills are not so great so they came out a little matte :( well, next time I guess.

I can see holes in them! <3

I tried to microwave this too.  Don't. 

Passion Fruit Sherbet

Ingredient

30o ml passion fruit pulp

1 egg white

pinch of salt

Sugar to taste (2-3 tbsp) 

So I finally brought a food processor.  Yes.  Like everyone else in the world okay food fandom.  

 Its so new.  And shiny.  And perfect.

Start by scooping out the passion from pulp.

Blend on the food processor to loosen up the juice from the seeds. 

Add salt

Some sugar to taste, depending on the tartness of the fruit.  Im using orange sugar that I made a while ago.  It clumped up a little bit cause i didnt let the zest dry enough, but its okay.

Here Im using a sugar substitute that's also an invert sugar.  This helps keep the sherbet soft – not rock hard.

Blend














Freeze it.  

Okay I forgot to take photos for the last bit so sorry.

Once completely frozen, transfer the chunks into a blender.  Add egg whites and blend until the crystals reduces in size.  -- meanwhile put the container you want to store the ice cream in into the freezer.  This minimizes the melting when the ice cream comes in contact with the container's surface.

A Look Into My Recipe Book

Food Science is really cool! :D 

I like to plan out my cakes in advance.  

Dream about it.  

Fantasize.  

Makes the actual baking all the more exciting.

Pizzaaaaa

^that's chef John of foodwishes's recipe btw

I've always loved the look of handwritten notes :)