le cordon bleu - day 12

I still remember back when I used to laugh at Andrew at work for eating florentines. These were things that old people ate; nuts and more nuts plus just that bit of chocolate. For awhile, I actually refused to touch these things. At most places, you'll find these for about $3.50 and frankly, wouldn't you spend this money on something else if you had a choice? Although one day, I did give it a go and since then, I've got to say that I've been converted. Out of all the ones I've tried, there are some slight variations but generally speaking, you can associate the words 'crunchy delight' with these morsels. You can't really go wrong with these things; both store-bought and supermarket-packed ones are equally crunchy. I would highly recommend everyone to head to Aldi for this particular brand which sell them petit four-sized with a mixture of various flavours. Otherwise, Kez does a rather good gluten-free florentine (the only downside being the price); I used to love getting these at the uni shops because it seemed like these were the only places that sold them.

So today I had a hand in making my own florentines and it was definitely much easier than I thought it would be. We were just saying yesterday how the classes seemed to be getting progressively harder and more complicated but making florentines was a breeze. I think half the class was making mistakes today just because we were getting bored. Lol...one of my classmates even started chopping his chocolate button by button because we had so much time. Anyways, I'm a very proud owner of 12 florentines (down to 11 now...hehe :D) and seriously, they taste really good! Does anyone know where to buy glucose syrup?

So I guess that brings me to the end of my chocolate week. I'm pretty alright with tempering chocolate. For some reason today, my chocolate set in my piping bag before I could even pipe it (rather bizarre!). My love for florentines has definitely grown and I definitely won't satisfy for less now. No more of that peanut and sultana stuff I get from cafes. Actually, does anyone know where you can get a good florentine in Sydney? I haven't really seen many around. I'll dig into mine for the time being.