While at a vide-grenier, the French equivalent of a car boot sale/garage sale, I stumbled upon a set of shiny new financier moulds. They were still in their original packaging and had a faded price tag from when Francs were still in use and Le Bon Marché was called Au Bon Marché.
On my return, the first thing I baked were these tiny little petits fours. I used a recipe for perfect financiers (almond cakes) from Nathalie Benezet, author of Le Petit Paris (USA | UK | India). I followed the recipe pretty much exactly as given. The only variation was that I added a quarter teaspoon of pistachio paste into half the batter for the pistachio flavoured financiers.
You will notice there isn’t any baking powder in this recipe – financiers usually don’t need any. These are meant to be small, slightly dense cakes that are very moist from all the almond powder in it. This recipe can be used as the perfect base for any variations you’d like to play with. While I used it with raspberries, blueberries and chocolate, you can make these your own by adding citrus zest, a wee bit of matcha powder or even swap the powdered almonds with hazelnuts. Also, you don’t have to have the exact same moulds – any small cake moulds will do. Depending on the size you use (mine were tiny), you will have fewer cakes and the baking time will increase. Look for a beautifully golden crust on the cake and your financiers are ready!
Ingredients
- 50g butter plus extra for greasing
- 50g plain flour plus extra for dusting
- 140g ground almonds
- 160g icing sugar
- 6 egg whites
- Blueberries, raspberries and chopped chocolate
- Pistachio paste (optional)
Method
- Preheat the oven to 180°C. Butter and flour tiny financier tins.
- Gently heat the butter in a small pan over a medium heat until it turns golden brown, then pull it off the heat.
- In a bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients. Stir in the egg whites.
- Gradually stir in the browned butter until you have a smooth batter.
- Spoon the batter into the tins until they are almost full, then pop some blueberries, raspberries and chocolate into each one.
- Optional: stir in 1/4 tsp of pistachio paste in the financier mix and spoon it into the prepared moulds.
- Bake for 10–12 minutes until firm and golden brown.
- Remove from the oven and leave to cool, then tap out of the mould and let it cool before you can eat or store into an airtight container.