Cranberry and Almond Florentines

I'm all for making edible Christmas presents and these are classic florentines made with almonds, pistachios and dried cranberries. I would suggest going for good quality honey and dark chocolate for dipping. Make sure you make the effort and really flatten out your biscuits so that they are nice and crisp.

Makes 16 biscuits

Ingredients:

50g butter, cut into cubes

60g caster sugar

60ml honey

50g spelt/plain flour

50g dried cranberries, chopped

60g almond flakes

50g pistachios, chopped

1 tsp vanilla extract

zest of 2 oranges

two pinches of salt

160g dark chocolate, chopped into pieces

Preheat the oven to 180 C degrees and line two baking trays with baking paper.

Add the first 3 ingredients together into a large saucepan and set to medium heat and stir to dissolve completely. Then add the rest of the ingredients (except the chocolate) and mix together. Each Florentine is roughly half a tablespoon of the mix and spoon onto the baking paper.

Remember to leave at least a 2-inch gap between each biscuit as they will spread out while baking. Try to spread out the mix a bit so that you get nice crisp biscuits. Bake for 6 mins and then turn the trays around. They should be golden and I usually take the cooking to 14mins but this depends on how small and flat you make them. Keep an eye! Then leave to cool.

Set a pan of water to simmer and place a heatproof bowl on top. Add the dark chocolate to melt. When the biscuits are set, dip the flat bottom or half a biscuit into the chocolate. Leave then to set completely before eating.