Lunch: Florentine S'mores

Ingredients

1/4 cup dried cherries, chopped
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sliced almonds, roughly chopped
1/4 teaspoon fine salt
1/4 teaspoon orange zest
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons salted butter
1 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
1/2 vanilla bean, scraped

Instructions

Special equipment: melon baller, kitchen blow torchFor the cookies: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line two sheet trays with parchment paper. In a small bowl, toss the cherries with 1 1/2 teaspoons flour, to coat. In a large bowl, mix the remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons flour, the almonds, salt and zest. Stir in the coated cherries, and set aside. In a small saucepan set over medium heat, bring the sugar, butter, cream and corn syrup to a rolling boil for 1 minute, stirring occasionally to make sure the sugar dissolves. Remove from the heat, add the vanilla scrapings, and then pour into the dry ingredients. Stir just to combine, and then cool for 5 minutes. Firmly press the batter into melon baller scoops and roll into 16 balls. Place on the prepared trays and flatten each slightly with the palm of your hand, making sure to leave space for the cookies to spread. Bake until the cookies thin out and turn an even golden color, about 11 minutes. Cool completely. For the ganache: Place the chocolate chips in a medium bowl. In a small saucepan over medium-high heat, bring the cream to a simmer. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate and let sit to melt the chocolate, about 1 minute. With a rubber spatula, begin stirring the cream into the chocolate from the center of the bowl working outwards. Stir until the ganache has come together completely and is smooth and shiny. Let cool slightly before assembling the s'mores. To assemble, lay out the cookies. Cover half of the cookies in the ganache and the other half in the marshmallow creme. Brulee the marshmallow creme with a kitchen blow torch and top with a ganache-covered Florentine cookie.