Cocoa Nib Florentines · GF (about 24, 4" cookies)Tweet

In Lexington, you can find cocoa nibs at Liquor Barn, or you can buy them in bulk at Good Foods Market.

I think these would make a great addition to a Tea Party, or you can hoard them for yourself in the cookie jar.

12 ounces pecans
4 ounces cocoa nibs
6 ounces all purpose flour (use rice flour for Gluten Free)
1 ounce cocoa powder
8 ounces butter
3 3/4 ounces honey
10 ounces sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
2 tsp instant coffee powder
1 Tbsp vanilla extract

optional: a few ounces of dark chocolate for drizzling.

Preheat the oven to ye ol’ 350° and have 2 parchment lined baking sheets at the ready. You will seriously regret making these cookies on a naked cookie sheet, or even a buttered one. Consider yourself warned. Have a few large, round cookie cutters standing by too.

Making the dough

Chop the pecans and cocoa nibs until no large pieces remain (aim for a chunky mixture with pieces the size of nerds candy). Alternately, you can do this in a food processor. In either event, toss the chopped pecans and nibs with the flour and cocoa and set aside.

In a medium pot, melt the butter and honey together. When they’ve liquefied, add the sugar, salt, and espresso powder. Bring this mixture to a boil; stir occasionally to insure the sugar dissolves completely. Once is begins to boil, shut off the heat and stir in the vanilla and dry ingredients.

Use a small ice cream scoop or Tablespoon to measure out even, rounded portions of dough. Drop the dough onto the prepared baking sheet, bearing in mind they will spread considerably; leave about 4” between each cookie.

Bake for 13-15 minutes or until they have spread thinly and turned uniformly dark and lacy. You may find some of the cookies have, like some sort of delicious, chocolaty version of the Borg, spread enough to assimilate their neighbors. Worry not. You can cut them free later.

Remove the cookies from the oven and allow them to cool on the pan for about a minute before trying to cut them out with the cookie cutter.

Cutting the Florentines

To cut the irregularly shaped cookies into clean rounds, you’ll need to use the largest round cookie cutter you have that does not exceed the size of the cookies. I have not had much success cutting these cookies into non-round shapes.

The goal here is not to “cut out” the cookies like you would with an unbaked cookie dough, but rather to stamp “perforations lines” onto each soft, semi-molten cookie. Don’t worry about trimming away the excess. Just stamp.

Once the cookies have cooled completely, simply pick up each cookie and snap off the ragged edges. The excess will break away cleanly, leaving you with a perfectly round cookie. (Please do not under any circumstance throw away the scrappy crumb type bits! You must save them, in a zippy bag, to sprinkle over ice cream or possibly breakfast cereal. You will thank me for this reminder someday.)

If at any stage in the game, the cookies become too hard to stamp, just pop ‘em back in the oven for 30 seconds or so, then try again.

Jazz up the cookies, if you like, by drizzling them with melted chocolate.

Another way to get fancy: you can make the Florentines stand up on edge. You’ll need to make up a batch of decorative caramel and dip the cookies, letting them form hard, caramel “feet”. Start by setting a piece of parchment on your counter top. (It’s hard to do this on a sheet pan, because most sheet pans are not perfectly flat).

Dip each cookie about 1/4” into the liquid caramel, letting the excess drip off. Then, set the cookie upright on the parchment paper, pressing down firmly, but gently, to create a flat “foot.”

Use a jar or bottle to support the cookie while the foot cools, or just hold it until the caramel hardens. You can also use another caramel-dipped cookie as a support by placing the two cookies together in a “T” shape.

Once the feet become hard, store the cookies in an airtight container to prevent the caramel feet from becoming sticky. When you’re ready to serve, these cookies will now stand up straight on the plate.

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Any questions?