Baking Beyond Borders: Biscuit Week: Mary Berry's Florentines

All three of us were born and raised in Florida so the words we associate with biscuit are honey, butter, jelly and chicken because, well, Chickfila.

Biscuit week on Bake Off though is something far from our southern roots. This biscuit or cookie (as we Americans call them) did actually include honey (well it was supposed to be golden syrup) and butter but was definitely far too dainty to hold a giant piece of fried chicken on it.

Mary Berry's Florentines - Picture courtesy BBC Food

The hilarious conversations continued among the three of us with these biscuits. We were all able to commiserate over having to make our own candied orange peel and the preciseness involved in tempering chocolate. Candy thermometers were scrutinized and purchased by some and eye-balling it was employed by others. One of us also weighed out the batter so that they would have 18 perfectly sized cookies while the other twos cookies ranged from tiny to giant (clearly one of us has the precise skills to be on bake off while the other two should probably stay far away from Paul's critical eyes).

The best thing to come out of this bake was the realization that they sell these cookies at Trader Joes. So really this whole process could have been avoided by one contestant and the other two would have been none the wiser.

First Baker: Megan

My Thoughts: First things first, surprisingly I do not own a candy thermometer and when I realized that there were two things in this recipe that required one, I thought it might be time to invest in one. I had wondrous plans to go to a few stores and look for one but after having to go to work at the school on a Sunday those plans were dashed (working on the weekends is the worst). The grocery store near me didn't have one so I left feeling confident I could make it work without the candy thermometer (the confidence coming mostly from The Greatest Showman soundtrack as I marched along the street singing "This is me" on my walk home). Miraculously I was able to accomplish candied orange peels and somewhat tempered chocolate without a candy thermometer and everyone really loved the florentines (minus the one judge who is not a candied orange fan). I really did like the blend of all of the flavors in this cookie and while I am mostly not a fan of orange and chocolate at least this bake included chocolate (also if you ever have leftover melted chocolate, dip some marshmallows in it or just eat it by the spoonful and all your worries of improperly sized florentines will disappear).

My most proud moments to my least proud in this collage, starting with my ingredients picture and ending with Florentines that I had to cut the burnt edges off of. I was definitely way more proud of those marshmallows than those zigzags.

Result: My florentines turned out all different shapes and sizes and were way tinier than they should have been (this was due to my following the garbage directions of 1 teaspoonful of batter). I think my oven temperature was partly to blame as Ukrainian ovens still have not gone digital and therefore I am constantly playing "guess the temperature" with my oven knob only showing increments of 40 degress. Also I started to do zigzags on mine and hated them so I decided Paul and Mary would put me in last place anyways so why put in the extra effort to make them uglier.

This is me trying to fool Paul and Mary into believing they are all the same size which I would totally do on the Bake Off but in reality I know I could never get anything past those two with their rulers and perfect palates.

Fake Paul and Mary Thoughts: Most of the judges loved the chocolate and orange combination except for one. They said that the nuts in the cookies made them complete. The judges actually liked the small size of the cookies but I may have failed to show them a picture of what on actual florentine looks like.

Average Taste Score: 8.5

Average Appearance Score: 6

Second Baker: Stephanie

My Thoughts: Again, looking at this recipe my first comments in our group text were "I don't think I have any of the ingredients here." It ended up not being too bad, I subbed honey for golden syrup and surprisingly enough found Demerara sugar (like sugar in the raw) at the store here! The real challenge and fun of this recipe was making the candied orange peel. Thankfully there my baker instincts kicked in and with the help of a good candy thermometer, half of my batch turned out like it was supposed to, and I was mostly proud of myself for not burning my tongue trying the syrup...as I may or may not have a tendency of doing. I definitely need to work on my chocolate tempering skills, which lead to another string of funny messages sent to the group as I tried to do it in the open refrigerator, and on a package of frozen berries. There was great lamenting on why one of us didn't have a large marble kitchen island that we could be doing all of this on....one day! I don't think I would have gotten points for my chocolate because it hardened too quickly making my zig zags a little rough and there wasn't a ton of shine. The cookies were pretty decently uniform, and had a good crunch to them, with still a lot of chew, and I enjoyed the fruity/nut taste combo, so I was pretty satisfied!

All the prep of making the candied orange peels, my attempts at cooling my chocolate faster, and all the ingredients

Result:

Fake Paul and Mary Thoughts: My "Paul" was thorough as ever and said that the proportions were great, he could taste all the flavors, overall it was delicious but he wasn't a huge fan of the chocolate. Originally he thought the presentation wasn't the prettiest, but when he saw a picture of the originals changed his mind and said they looked exactly like the photos. He didn't know the zig zags were purposeful haha. My Mary appreciated the almond flavor. My pastor, who is sadly not one of the judges, ate three of them, raved about them and was sad there weren't more, so we'll call it an overall win!

Average Taste Score: 8

Average Appearance Score: 7.5

Third Baker: Devin

My Thoughts: I was so excited to make these, they were a favorite recipe of mine. I just wanted to eat them all, but of course I'm trying to complete my first Whole30. So, I blindly made candied peel, which is something I swore I would never want to do again. I planned ahead this time. While the peel was candying, I prepped all my ingredients and put them into baggies, no cute ramekins for me. One thing I wish that I would have remembered is that because of the sugar content the color would brown faster but it wasn't burning. They looked pretty good, but by the end of baking I had some pretty oddly shaped florentines. I just ended up slapping the chocolate on the bottom. I kept my fingers crossed for some rave reviews.

The dreaded candied peel and the forbidden cookies

Result: My lazy chocolate skills seeped through the lacy design which some said made the chocolate taste overwhelming. The citrus flavor really came through and had no bitterness.

Get in my belly!!

Fake Paul and Mary Thoughts: No uniformity, but I can see that the lace was beginning to form. A failed attempt at the zigzag pattern. (Takes a bite) No crunch, kind of chewy but the taste is there. It could have used a few minutes more in the oven, they are missing the snap.

Average Taste Score: 8