GBBO 2014 Challenge - Week 2 - Florentines

Week 2 of the Great British Bake off Free From Technical challenge looked fairly straight forward, and I love Florentines! The basic recipe only has 2tsp (yes you read that right), about 10g, of flour, so really easy to just do a straight swap to wheat free if needed. As with any recipe using butter, just swap for dairy and soya free spread. Seemed to work fine just using milk substitute instead of crème fraîche too. 

I liked Jamie's recipe because it used nuts and seeds. Remember, you can swap the nuts and fruit for any combination your child can tolerate. On Twitter @Angelscout used coconut instead of almonds to give beautiful lacy florentines. I added pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds to mine for added flavour.

20g Dairy and Soya Fee Spread

70g Sugar

2tsp Plain Flour (or Wheat free plain flour)

60mls Milk Substitute

80g Mixed Nuts and Seeds (I used flaked almonds, pine nuts, pumpkin seeds and sesame seeds)

40g Mixed dried fruit - chopped (I used glace cherries, candy peel and dried apricots)

Preheat oven to 180ºC

Slowly melt the spread , sugar and flour in a pan, stirring constantly. If the sugar isn't dissolving, add a little of the milk substitute.

Add the nuts/seeds/fruit and stir well.

Place teaspoonfuls on a greased baking sheet (or greaseproof paper - I had run out).

Flatten slightly and bake for 12-15mins until just browning on the edges.

Cool for a minute before trying to remove from the tray.

If you're making chocolate coated ones, melt 100g suitable dairy and soya free chocolate.

Leave to chocolate to cool  until beginning to thicken, then spread on the back of the florentines and decorate using a fork. I prefer mine 'naked' so didn't bother with the chocolate this time (I did put chocolate on a token on for the photo, but then had to go out and didn't manage to get the wavy lines in it, so I cheated and hid the back…).

GBBO 2014 Challenge - Week 1 - Cherry Cake