Florentiner

Every December, Gretel and my grandmother Eva would spend one whole afternoon making Florentiner. The kitchen smelled like burnt sugar and melted chocolate and candied peel, and I was allowed to draw the fork lines through the warm chocolate on the bottoms if I promised to do it slowly and not eat more than two. I usually ate four. Nobody counted.

Florentiner are a Konditorei cookie, which means they come from the tradition of the professional Austrian pastry shop rather than the farmhouse kitchen. They demand a bit of precision. The caramel has to reach exactly the right color. The cookies have to bake until they're lacy and amber but not a shade darker. The chocolate has to be tempered properly so it sets with a snap instead of a dull, chalky film. None of this is difficult, but all of it requires you to pay attention. Put your phone down. Watch the pan.

What you get for that attention is extraordinary. Each Florentiner is a thin, glassy disc of caramelized almonds and candied fruit, shatteringly crisp on the first bite, with a layer of bittersweet chocolate on the bottom that holds everything together. They belong on a Christmas Keksteller (the big cookie plate every Austrian household assembles in Advent) next to Vanillekipferl and Linzer Augen. But I also keep them in a tin at my restaurant in Salzburg year-round, because some things are too good to save for one month.