Gluten-Free Confections: Sesame Florentines and Coconut Slices

I needed a few more gluten-free selections for my holiday cookie boxes, so I decided to make the Sesame Florentines from Payard Cookies and the Coconut Slice from Honey & Co. The Baking Book. 

The sesame florentines pictured in the cookbook look like small solid pucks, with sesame seeds all the way around the edges. The recipe seemed simple enough -- you just melt butter with honey; mix in sugar, sliced almonds, and sesame seeds; and bake the batter in greased mini muffin cups. I did bake some of the florentines in mini-muffin cups, but I also decided to try baking some in Demarle Silform square molds. These molds are made out flexible perforated silicone (their intended use is for baking bread rolls), and I thought the nonstick surface would be perfect for an easy release. I stupidly had not considered that the perforations would allow the batter to flow through during baking.  

I had placed the Silform mold on a baking sheet, and when I pulled the pan out of the oven, I saw batter leaking out from the mold all over the sheet. However, the perforations in the molds are tiny, so all of the sesame seeds and nuts stayed in the mold. I thought that those florentines I baked in the Silform were ruined, but I waited for them to cool completely and then popped them out of the mold. They were unbelievably good. They were crisp, light, and airy -- like eating sesame seeds and almonds held together with a bare minimum amount of sugary glue. By contrast, the florentines I baked in the greased mini muffin pans were dense and a bit difficult to eat. Both tasted great, but the square ones were amazing. While using the perforated molds was a ill-conceived idea, it produced a fabulous result.

The coconut slice recipe from The Honey & Co. Baking Book is also very easy, and it uses a method I've never seen before. The bars have a thin coating of pure chocolate on the bottom, but instead of applying the chocolate at the end after the bars are done, you bake the bars on top of the chocolate. You spread melted chocolate into the bottom of a pan; chill the pan until the chocolate is set; spread a mixture of the remaining ingredients (sugar, desiccated coconut, dried sour cherries, pistachios, almonds, melted butter, and eggs) on top; bake until golden; and then cool the bars and chill them for a few hours before slicing.

I loved these bars so much. They were satisfyingly chewy and tasted like the inside of a Mounds or Almond Joy candy bar, but less sweet and with lots of delicious fruit and nuts mixed in. The very thin layer of chocolate on the bottom added a lot of flavor and I love the combination of coconut and chocolate. Baking the bars on top of the chocolate created a perfectly smooth and pristine layer of chocolate on the bottom -- and it was way easier than trying to coat the bars after baking. Both of these recipes are incredibly easy and delicious.

 

Recipes: "Sesame Florentines" from Payard Cookies by François Payard, and "Coconut Slice" from Honey & Co. The Baking Book by Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich.