Ingredients
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180g/ 6 ounces Butter1½ sticks, unsalted butter
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180g/ 6 ounces Sugar
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1 cup/ 100g Ground blanched almonds
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6 Egg whites
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95g/ ¾ cup all purpose flour
Directions
Financiers are one of my favorite French patisserie small cakes, it has all I’m asking for in a cake, spongy crispy and most important rich almond buttery flavor.
The name of this almond cake derived from its shape which resembles a gold bar, and gold it is!
The method for making Financiers
There are many almond cakes from various cuisines however what makes this cake special is the combination of “beurre noisette” which is a butter cooked to the point you smell intoxicating hazelnut flavors and color changes to golden. It is created by allowing the butter to bubble in a small saucepan until almost burnt.
There is a fine line between burnt butter and golden nutty butter and since this is the heart of the recipe don’t take your eyes of the pan the butter can be destroyed in seconds.
Mixing the beurre noisette, egg whites, sugar and crushed almonds will form a runny dough that is best cooled before we put it in the financiers molds.
I prefer to use a piping bag (no need for a nuzzle) to place the batter in the molds. it’s not essential if you don’t have one, you can also use a spoon but it will take more time and will be a lot messier.
Baking is short, we are not interested in strong brown color, a light golden color is all that’s needed, it’s better that the cakes will be less crispy but will keep the moist internal texture.
Classic financiers can have many variations, the base almond cake can absorb almost any addition. earl-grey, sesame, espresso, chocolate, Hazelnut and more, you can add cherry, jam, buttermilk inside them and cover them in whatever topping comes to your head.
The ingredient list is small and appear simple, it actually is but we need to pay attention to the details if we want this cake not just be good, but be amazing as it should.
Steps
1
Done
5 minutes
|
preparing the beurre noisette |
2
Done
3 minutes
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making the batterIn a medium saucepan, mix almond and sugar, beat the egg whites gently and add to to the sugar almond mix. |
3
Done
15 minutes
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baking the financiers |