Baking and pastries are staples of every countries’ cuisines, but one of the most famous places known for their baked goods and pastries is none other than France.
You’ve noticed that in baking or cooking, especially in professional kitchens, there are many terms to define actions, items and methods in the French language. And one of the most famous French items is part of the French menu. In today’s recipe, I will be showing you how to make a French tea cake called a financier.
What is Financier
Financier is a typically small almond cake, usually made in small, rectangular moulds. Originally, the rectangular shape resembled a gold bar, but nowadays, you can bake them in any kind of mould shape you’d like. For this one, I chose an oval one since I see there are not a lot of oval-shaped financiers out there. But you can always choose your own liking.
The major key components of a financier are using just egg whites. The origin of a financier only has three main ingredients: most importantly egg whites, sugar and flour. In the modernized era, people have experimented more and more to make financier better than its original form. Thus it brings to my specific recipe of a financier.
In this recipe, we will be making a brown butter almond financier. Now, how great does that sound?!
The Best Financier Recipe
Brown butter has always been a great ingredient when it comes to baking. It gives a more in-depth flavour of butter and gives a caramelized taste to the financier, as we will use it in this recipe. Another special ingredient that I use is almond flour. Almond flour gives more moisture because of the oils from the almonds themselves, thus creating this fluffy, moist financier as a result. Not only that, but I will also add a few sprinkles of almond crumbs on top to give a subtle crunch to the financier.
How to Make Financiers
Financiers are fairly simple to make, and it might sound repetitive in my recipes, but honestly, I love to make simple yet delicious and presentable recipes rather than difficult ones. I want you to be able to see how fun and simple baking can be, and this recipe just proves my theory.
The type of mould that we use to bake is aluminium, but you can also exchange it for nonstick pans or silicon moulds. However, I would not recommend silicon since it would be harder to achieve a caramelized, crispy crust on the outside of these brown butter almond financiers.
You can serve these brown butter almond financiers for guests whenever they come to visit. It’s a great little cake for a little get-together, or whenever you have any leftover egg whites, you can always whip this up and make yourself a little sweet treat! So grab yourself a whisk, and let’s get to baking!
Some tips that might be useful:
- You can use other shaped moulds, such as round, square, etc.
- You can use a stainless steel mould or even silicon, but I highly recommend not to use silicon as the results wouldn’t be as crispy and caramelized as you would baking in a stainless steel or aluminum mould.
