December Recipe: Florentine Cookies

Florentine Cookies (also known as Lace Cookies)
Perfect for dipping into hot drinks.

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• Cookies:
• ½ cup butter, unsalted is best if using salted nuts
• ⅔ cup packed brown sugar, light or dark
• ⅓ cup powdered sugar
• ¾ cup flour
• ½ tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 TBls light corn syrup
• 1 egg white
• ½ cup sliced almonds
• ¼ cup salted pumpkin seeds
• ¼ cup dried fruit (cranberries, cherries, etc)
• Chocolate for drizzle, white or dark

Preparation

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
• Melt butter and combine sugars, corn syrup, vanilla together in a bowl.
• Add in almonds, pumpkin seeds and fruit to the bowl and then stir together with the egg white. I wait to add the egg white here because I do not want to add the egg white to the butter if it is too hot. The mixture of the sugars with the butter as well as the mix-ins will help cool down the butter so the egg white does not scramble.
• Once combined, add in your flour and mix until a batter is form. This will not be as thick as a chocolate chip cookie dough or the red velvet cookies; due to this it will spread. These cookies are supposed to spread and crisp. 
• Taking a small cookie scoop or a Tablespoon, scoop out your cookies onto a lined or greased cookie sheet leaving approximately 3 inches between.
• Bake for 10 minutes, but check at the 5 minute mark. If you’d like to take them out at 5 minutes, you may, they will just be thicker in the center.
• Once your cookies have cooled, you can take melted chocolate and drizzle it over the cookies. This isn’t the only difference between a traditional Florentine and mine, but this is a big difference; usually you would spread a thin layer of chocolate onto the bottom of the cookies whereas I just drizzle atop it. 
• Enjoy with a warm drink, dunking if you’d like!