What if I told you that the Florentiner (the German name for a Florentine) does not, in fact, come from Florence? The clue is in the ingredients. Emiko Davies of Honest Cooking writes that many of the cookies and biscuits that stem from Tuscany are rather austere. Biscotti, for example, are dry, hard, not particularly sweet, and are made with a lot of flour and very little fat -- and the fat, traditionally, was olive oil and not butter. The Florentiner, meanwhile, is made with a lot of dairy -- mostly cream and some butter -- and are either dipped in or have one side covered in dark chocolate. This shows that these cookies are not Italian but French, likely named after Florence as a nod to Catherine de' Medici -- Queen consort of France from 1547 to 1559, who was born in the Republic of Florence -- and the ties that bound the French and Florentine royal households in the seventeenth century, when the Florentiner was likely conceived.
This French biscuit is a popular part of the Christmas cookie selection across Austria and southern Germany. A Florentiner, since I haven't even described it yet, is a thin, round, and crisp biscuit made from sliced almonds glued together with cream, butter, honey, and sugar and covered on one side with dark chocolate. The cooking method is relatively simple. The cream, butter, honey, and sugar are brought to the boil in a saucepan. The nuts are added to the sweet, creamy, molten mix and stirred to combine. (For more of a seasonal, stained-glass effect, chopped candied cherries and candied orange, lemon, or lime peel can be added.) This mix is then spread onto a lined baking sheet in a single, thin layer and baked as a piece for half an hour and left to cool overnight. The next day, the almond sheet can either be lazily broken into shards or more precisely cut with a knife or cookie cutter into squares or rounds prior to the application of dark chocolate. Merry Christmas!
