Financiers aux framboises...

I wanted to bake something more ‘autumnal’ today, but when I saw the recipe for raspberry and pistachio financiers, I just couldn’t resist them...

Financiers, also called friands are little almond tea cakes originating from France. I already posted a recipe for them once here. Unlike Donna Hay’s recipe which I had used back then, this recipe doesn’t use baking powder at all. The cakes come out even more delicious. Soft, delicate, spongy, just wonderful!!! Traditionally, financiers are baked in oval or rectangular molds resembling bars of gold, but since I don’t have them (yet), I used other molds instead.

The recipe comes from one of my favorite French food magazines Cuisine Gourmande.

Use real butter (no margarine) in this recipe. Cooked until golden brown it will add a light nutty flavor to the cakes. The raspberry - pistachio combination is truly delicious, but feel free to experiment with other fruit/nuts. The cakes taste delicious plain as well.

Raspberry- Pistachio Financiers

Makes 12 cakes

125 g raspberries
1 tbsp unsalted pistachios, shelled
125 g butter
100 g icing sugar
30 g flour
90 g almond meal
3 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F (180°C). Grease 12 friand molds or other molds you use.
2. Melt the butter in a saucepan; heat over low heat until it turns nutty brown and some of the milk solids separate. Leave to cool.
3. Sieve flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. Add almond meal and stir to combine.
4. Add egg whites, one at a time, stirring well after each addition. Add cooled butter and stir until the ingredients are well combined.
5. Spoon the batter into prepared molds. Press a few raspberries and pistachios into each cake.
6. Bake for 15-25 minutes or until golden brown. Let cool before unmolding.

Print the recipe

Przepis po polsku:
"Finansjerki" z malinami

For those who like almonds...

There was Grandmother’s Day in Poland last Monday, and I wanted to bake something for my grandmother for that occasion. I had spent hours looking through cookbooks and cooking magazines to choose the best recipe. Finally, I opted for friands recipe. I decided to make these little almond cakes as the recipe resembled pear and almond cake I had baked a week before. The cake was absolutely delicious, so I thought that another recipe with almonds would be a perfect choice. Well, it wasn’t. Not that the cakes were not good, they were delicious, both I and my husband absolutely loved them. They were soft, they were spongy, they were moist and… they did taste almonds…but when my grandmother tried one, you could see from her face she didn’t share my love for these cakes. At first, I couldn't understand why, but then it reminded me that my grandmother did not like almonds. She had mentioned it to me a few weeks before Christmas when we talked about almond flavor in poppy seeds cake, but I totally forgot about that. So, if you do not like almond flavor either, forget about these cakes, you wouldn’t like them. But if you’re (like me) a fan of almonds, I suspect you’ll love them. They’re simple, but absolutely delicious, perfect with a cup of coffee in the morning or any other time of the day.

The recipe was adapted from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2. I altered the recipe slightly by adding vanilla sugar to the batter and reducing the amount of icing sugar. I also beat the egg whites slightly, even though the recipe didn’t ask for that. I didn’t have friands molds, so I baked my friands in muffin pans, I turned them upside down after baking as they looked nicer this way. I baked my friands plain, but you can top them with some fruit before baking. I suspect they would be delicious with raspberries, but feel free to use the fruit you like most. Also, if you don’t have almond meal, you can make your own by processing whole almonds until finely ground. Since my friands were meant to be a gift, I decorated them with icing and sugar flowers, but I think they would be better without the icing, served with a dash of whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Friands
(adapted from Donna Hay's Modern Classics Book 2)

125 g butter
1 cup almond meal
1 cup icing sugar
16 g vanilla sugar
¾ cup all-purpose flour, sifted
½ teaspoon baking powder
5 egg whites

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C (350° F)
2. Grease 12 friand molds or muffin pans.
3. Heat butter in a saucepan over low heat, whisking frequently, until golden brown.
4. Place the almond meal, icing sugar, vanilla sugar, flour, and baking powder in a bowl and stir to combine.
5. In a separate bowl, lightly beat egg whites with a fork, then fold them into dry ingredients.
6. Add the butter and stir to combine.
7. Spoon 2 tbsp of the mixture into each mold.
8. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and springy to touch but moist in the centre.

Przepis po polsku:
Friands (Migdałowe babeczki)