Florentines

When I was a school girl, my mother used to make me eat a handful of blanched almonds every day.  She’d read somewhere that almonds were brain food and obviously my lacklustre performance in school must have troubled her , hence the almonds.

Frankly, I hated them. Blanched almonds didn’t taste great. Plus, they were unseasoned. Not a grain of salt went on them. It was torture for me and, I am assuming, torture for my mother getting me to eat them. Sometimes, I’d tell her to pack them ... that I would eat them on my way to school and three days later she’d find them in my schoolbag, wrapped up in a piece of tissue, rotting. Well, not rotting but definitely past their prime.

Yes, I was a challenge to bring up.

After months of trying, mum gave up and she devised other ways of getting me to eat my daily dose of brain food. I must have been truly an under performer for her to go to such lengths. My favouritest of her almond concoctions was a steamed almond pudding that was only slightly sweet but nice and milky. Oh! I think she thanked the heavens when I professed my love for the custard and actually begged her to make it more often.

I don’t know if it improve my academic performance much or at all (unlike my brother who loved to learn, I found studying a chore) but it surely made me love almonds.

I never did get the recipe for the almond custard from my mum - this will be one of my many regrets - but I have found many other recipes with almonds that I love.

This recipe for Florentines is based on one from Ottolenghi, a restaurant in London. The original is flavoured with orange zest and coated in chocolate. I resisted the chocolate as I didn’t want to underwhelm the almonds. And, I omitted the zest as I didn’t have oranges in my kitchen. Still, the Florentines turned out good.

There is nothing complicated about making Florentines: ingredients are few and the process is simple. For such little effort, you get a crunchy, nutty treat that can be eaten at any time.

 

Florentines

1 egg white 

13/4 cup blanched sliced almonds

1/3 cup icing sugar

pinch of salt

drop of vanilla

Preheat the oven to 150C.

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and lightly oil the paper.

Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl. Using a fork or a spoon, lift a portion of the mixture (about a tablespoon's worth) onto the baking sheet and spread it as thin as possible, keeping the almond slices close together.

Repeat, leaving about 1cm gap between each portion. 

Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the cookies are cooked through. You can use a spatula or a palette knife to gently lift one cookie to check if the bottom has cooked. They should be a lovely shade of golden when done. 

Remove, cool and eat.

Coconut and Almond loaf

Seven minutes. That's all it took for this potentially moist cake to go dry. I dozed off in front of the TV (serves me right for baking at midnight I guess) and woke up to realise that I'd left the cake in the oven a little too long. Arrrrgh. I rushed into the kitchen, expecting to see a loaf of charcoal. 

God musta been looking out for me, I guess. 

The cake was, thank goodness, salvageable. Just a little browner than I would have liked on top and a tad dry. Nothing that a little syrup infusion would not fix (more on this later).

The star ingredient of this cake is coconut oil.

Coconut oil has featured prominently in my life, all my life. As a child, I remembered the people around me -- aunts, cousins, family friends -- who had thick, lovely hair that was neatly plaited or pulled into a tight pony tail. Their hair had a nice, healthy sheen to it which mine lacked and I later learnt that the sheen was thanks to a daily (almost) coat of coconut oil. At the time, I couldn't imagine putting oil on my hair and so my hair was never magnificent.

Years later, when my mother grew ill and her skin became dry, she used to rub fresh, home-made coconut oil on her arms, elbows and legs. This time around, I follow suit.I even applied it onto my hair. It was the best moisturiser I'd even tried.

And, it smelt wonderful..


But I never, ever considered cooking or baking with coconut oil. Until I read an article in The New York Times last March about the benefits of cooking with coconut oil.

"... virgin coconut oil has a haunting, nutty, vanilla flavor," wrote Melissa Clarke of the NYT. "It’s even milder and richer tasting than butter, sweeter and lighter textured than lard, and without any of the bitterness you sometimes get in olive oil."

Seriously? I was interested. Very interested. I went out and bought myself a bottle of organic virgin coconut oil.

That was four months ago. I kept getting side-tracked and never got around to testing out Clarke's assertions.

Until last week that is. I decided to make a version of the Almond and Lime Zest Pound Cake that accompanied Clarke's article. The cake was tasty. And, true to the article, nutty too. And the smell. Oh my!

Next time though, I will not fall asleep and so the cake will be super moist and that would make it perfect.

Almond and Coconut Pound Cake

(adapted from the NYT)

1/2 cup sliced almonds
1 cup, plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup virgin coconut oil
3/4 cup milk
3 eggs
Zest of 1 lemon
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 tsps baking powder
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt.
1/3 cup grated, sweetened coconut flakes /dessicated coconut

Lemon Syrup (to rescue the dry cake)
1/3 cup lemon juice
1/3 cup sugar

For the topping, mix the almonds, 2 tbsp of of sugar and 1 tbsp water and set aside.

Sift the flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside.

Whisk together the oil, sugar, eggs, milk and the remaining sugar in a bowl until well incorporated.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients. Add the lime zest and the coconut flakes to the mixture.

Grease and line a loaf pan. Pour the batter into the greased pan. Sprinkle the topping all over the top and bake for 50 mins.

ONLY if you let your cake over bake, here's a quick lemon-syrup infusion to help moisten it.
Heat the lemon juice and sugar until the sugar dissolves. Keep on the stove for 2-3 mins. Invert the cake from the loaf pan onto a baking sheet. Using a toothpick, poke holes in the top and sides of the cake and drizzle the syrup over and let it seep into the cake (a couple of hours or overnight) before cutting/serving.

Butter me nutty

After seeing the creamy nut butters featured in the April-May issue of Flavours (a food magazine) I knew I had to make some for myself. Homemade nut butters? Oh my, I was as excited as those pre teen and tween girls at the Tokio Hotel concert just last week.  And as I peered into the blender as the butter was being processed, I too was in tears as those screaming groupies of the German band.

I was a wreck. An emotional wreck.

I was particularly pleased because I didn't have a high-powered blender and used my reliable just-barely mid range Philips blender, praying all the while that the motor wouldn't give way. I love you, my Philips blender. Thank you.

I never realised how simple it is to make nut butters -- peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, hazelnut butter... you name it. All you need is some fresh good quality nuts and a little bit of salt and a sturdy blender.

The catch is that the nuts (except for the modest peanut) can be pretty expensive and making a jar of these creamy beauties can cost you close to RM12.  Oh, well. the satisfaction and the rich creamy spread you get is all the payoff you need.

What you  need is 400g of your choice nuts. I used almonds. First, you roast them in the oven: it's up to you if you want it slightly roasted or if you prefer a dark roast. I chose a dark roast. Although you can opt not to use unroasted nuts, the roasting process helps release some of the flavour from the nuts, hence your  nut butter will be richer.  So, if you want just a light roast, heat up your oven to about 120C, spread the nuts on a flat tray and roast for about 10 mins. for a dark roast, leave it about 5 mins longer or till they brown.

Remove and let cool a little. Transfer into a blender and add a pinch of salt and blend. And blend. And blend. First, will be the grinding and you will see your nuts turn to coarse powder. Blend some more and you will start seeing the crumbs get creamier, and creamier until they resemble a thick buttery paste. A high-powered blender will, naturally, yield results faster. My basic Philips took a while longer (about 20 mins) with some one minute rests in between (I really was afraid the motor would go bust).

Most store-bought nut butters have some kind of hydrogenated vegetable oil, sugar  and colouring to enhance the taste and texture. Home made nut butters are pure nut butters although you may add some like-flavoured liquers (like amaretto for the almond butter) to enhance the taste. I didn't have almaretto at home, dang-it, so mine was totally original.

So, it's goodbye peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (for a while) and ola to almond butter/jelly! Oh, and almond butter cream cookies. And almond butter slices, perhaps!