The British Bake Off star Mak Patel's Eid florentines recipe

This weekend is special for many people around the world.

They will be celebrating Eid.

Thousands of pilgrims from the UK have travelled to Mecca and Medina to fulfil their obligations. We wish them a safe journey.

Celebrating any festivity involves the challenge of coming up with mouth-watering food. In this age where everyone is busy with whatever they are doing there is a tendency to buy everything in.

Not only is it more expensive but it lacks the all-important flavour of home cooking. We need to retain our home economics skills to pass on to our future generation.

Teach our children to be confident in the kitchen.

To mark the event of Eid-al-Adha houses around Bolton will be wafting with wonderful smells of cooking for joyous family gatherings.

However, there are always those who leave things to the last minute. Do not worry, I have something here that will save the day; chocolate florentines. An ideal recipe where children can help out.

Florentines were part of our week 2 two signature on the Great British Bake Off. A recipe you can make your own and is laughably easy to make.

Florentines will be a wonderful addition to any table spread.

You can use any dried fruit instead of the peel, but I find the sharp contrasting flavour of orange is very much to my taste.

Prep time: 15 minutes, plus chocolate spreading.

Cooking time: eight minutes.

Equipment: three baking trays.

Makes about 20 florentines, depending on how generous you are with your portions

Recipe: 50g Caster sugar, 50g golden syrup, 50g butter, 50g plain flour, 50g flaked almonds (or other nuts of your choice), 50g stem ginger, diced into small pieces, 50g orange peel (or mixed peel) diced into small pieces, 200g plain or dark chocolate (choice is yours).

Method

1. In a pan heat sugar, syrup and butter on the hob until sugar dissolves, about a couple of minutes. Take off heat.

2. Add the flour, almonds, ginger and peel to the pan and mix. Try not to break the flaked almonds.

3. Turn oven onto 180 degrees fan.

4. Line the baking trays with parchment. Spoon about a teaspoon of the mixture onto the trays, leaving room for each one to spread. At least two inches between each portion.

5. Bake in oven for about eight minutes, until golden.

The perfect florentine will be speckled with holes.

Take out of oven and leave on the tray to cool. If you want you can create rounds with a pastry cutter once the florentines have hardened slightly. Eat all the scraps. Chef’s treat.

6. To decorate, melt the chocolate in a bowl placed on a saucepan of simmering water. With a metal spoon spread the chocolate on the back of each florentine and leave to set. You can make swirly shapes on the chocolate once it has firmed.

Serve with tea or coffee, or as a treat on its own.

The florentines will keep in an airtight container for a few days. Treat as normal biscuits. I also tried the recipe with glace cherries but the orange were everyone’s favourite.

Wishing everyone a very happy and glorious Eid.