The holidays are over and we’ve celebrated the passing of another year (good riddance) and are now slogging through what can best be described as The Longest Months.
Winter in the midwest can seem almost like pandemic times; the temps and snow this year have been hitting us harder than they have in years, and I’m more inclined than ever to tuck in and wait for longer days and double digits on the thermometer. And to get to playing in the kitchen.
Today, we’re having fun with matzo, spreading our wings from soup and stepping over to the sweeter side of things.
Are you ready for it?
But first, what is matzo? The quick and dirty is that it’s a crisp, unleavened bread (more like a cracker) made simply of flour
and water, and often served during Passover to commemorate the end of Jewish people’s enslavement and their hasty exit from Egypt. Typically, matzo has no added flavor, making it the perfect blank slate with which to play. And play we shall!
Today’s recipe is a mouthful in more ways than one: Five Spice Matzo White Chocolate Florentines.
Have you ever had a Florentine cookie? If not, get thee to the store because they are some of my favorites; almondy caramely, thin cookies baked until crispy and dipped in chocolate. What’s not to love?
That is unless you can’t have nuts. But that’s where the matzo comes in!
Taking inspiration from both The Great British Bake Off and the toffee matzo crack reels that ended up on my Instagram feed this holiday season, I thought I’d throw my nut-free friends a Florentine party, and use broken up matzo in place of almonds. A little five spice powder and orange zest keeps it interesting, and white chocolate finishes it off at the end.
The result? OMG. A crispy, crunchy, buttery, dare-I-say perfect accompaniment to an afternoon cup of tea, a morning cup of coffee, an afternoon snack, or any day ending in -Y. Who even needs the nuts? Matzo forever!
1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Place the matzo crackers in a plastic zipper bag. Using a rolling pin, the back of a knife, or elbow grease, break the crackers into tiny pieces, about the size of oats. Add the broken matzo into a medium bowl with the flour, five spice powder and orange zest. Mix everything together and set aside.
3. In a small saucepan, add the butter, syrup, sugar and cream. Heat slowly while the butter melts and sugar dissolves, then bring up the temperature until the mixture comes to a rolling boil. Reduce the heat and let simmer for 1 minute.
4. Add the caramel mixture to the dry ingredients, mixing it all with a spatula until well combined. You need to work fast because the caramel will harden.
5. Using an ice cream scoop (about 2 TB), scoop the mixture evenly onto a cookie sheet, 6-8 per sheet. Using the bottom of a heavy glass, push down and flatten the dough into discs.
6. Bake, one cookie sheet at a time, on the middle rack of the oven for 11-13 minutes until golden brown. Let cool on the cookie sheet for 3 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.
7. Once the cookies have cooled, melt the white chocolate chips slowly in the microwave, 30 seconds at a time, mixing in between each burst, until silky smooth. Use a flat spatula to coat the bottom of each cooled cookie thoroughly with chocolate.
8. Once the chocolate has hardened, store in an airtight container for a week, if they last that long!
Chrissy Barua is the author of the food blog The Hungary Buddha Eats the World. Over the past thirteen years, she’s created recipes for the home cook inspired by her upbringing and her travels. Her culinary skills are self-taught; she learned to appreciate food from her mother, learned how to cook food by watching Rachel Ray, and learned how to really eat and enjoy food from traveling with her equally hungry friends. She collects recipes from anywhere she can find them: books, in-flight magazines, newspapers, the internet and, if she can connive them out of them, her friends and their grandmas. The name of her blog, The Hungary Buddha, is inspired by her own multi-cultural upbringing, and is a nod to both of her parents.
