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ffwd: financiers
This week, we’re baking again for French Fridays with Dorie. After last week’s confusing categorization of a sweet-savory nibble, this week’s recipe is firmly in the land of sweets: financiers. Financiers are little buttery almond cakes, traditionally baked in the shape of a gold ingot, that were created by Patisserie Lasne in Paris as a snack for the stockbrokers at the Bourse.
I’ve been fascinated by this recipe for ages. In my embarrassingly large (or should I say ginormous) collection of clipped recipes, I’m sure there are at least a dozen variations for financiers. And yet, before this week, I’d never made them before. I was very excited to try.
For something this rich and delicious, the batter is surprisingly simple to make. First, you brown some butter. Then, you combine almond flour, sugar, and egg whites, and heat this mixture until it gets hot. Some flour is added, and finally the butter is whisked in, and you have batter. The batter does need to rest overnight.
I’ve only browned butter once, before for another Dorie recipe. The process took a little longer than I expected, but it was meditative. I fell into a trance while I carefully watched the butter boil. Then, in an instant, it smelled nutty and turned a lovely shade of brown.
I used almond meal from Trader Joe’s which has flecks of brown from the skin, so my batter had a wholesome, rustic look. I suppose the French patisseries use almond meal or flour made from blanched nuts, for a more refined look.
I didn’t have a special financier pan, so baked my little cakes in mini-muffin tins. Actually, I’ve made one pan full and have enough to bake at least another dozen today. The batter will keep for 3 days in the refrigerator, so the pleasure of slightly warm nutty goodness can be extended throughout the week.
I didn’t have any fresh berries on hand, but you can also adorn each cake with a berry before baking. I’ll try to remember that in raspberry season this summer.
Financiers are definitely a good snack, not just for French stockbrokers, but for anyone, anywhere.
If you’d like to try these yourself, you can find the recipe here. And, you can always find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table. To read about other bloggers’ financiers, check out their links here.
ffwd: ispahan loaf cake
Photo from David Austin Roses
Photo from Pierre Hermé
This week’s cake recipe uses mostly almond flour lightened with beaten egg whites in tribute to its macaron inspiration. The batter is flavored with roses (syrup and extract) and layered in the pan with berries. The syrup gives the cake its shocking pink color!
Rose syrup and rose extract introduced an element of “the hunt” to the game. I set out to the Middle Eastern neighborhood in nearby Watertown, hoping to locate the rose syrup. I found many brands of rosewater and many other flavors of syrup, but in the three well-stocked groceries, there was no rose syrup to be found. My next excursion to a well-stocked Indian grocery in Waltham resulted in success! The rose extract was slightly easier to come by. I found it at Sur La Table which is in the nearest shopping mall.
For the fruit layers, I was hoping to use raspberries that we froze last summer, but I seem to have used them up. I found frozen strawberries from last summer, so used those instead of fresh raspberries.
On to the actual cake… I might be in the minority on this one, but this is far and away my least favorite recipe in the book to date. I knew Howard wouldn’t even try it after he took one whiff of the rose syrup still in the bottle. I was so intrigued by it, but I found the taste too flowery and the texture too moist. I even had to bake the cake for an extra 10 minutes before my tester came out clean. As with all doubtful baking, I brought the cake to the office. It got eaten, but no one seemed overly impressed with this one.
I’m eager to know what the other Doristas think. You can find links to their posts here. The recipe can be found in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
Happy Spring! First day of spring in Lexington gave us light snow after an 8-inch snowfall earlier in the week. Ugh! In January, I’d be delighted. In March, I’m annoyed.
You might not be able to see it, but there is snow falling… on March 21!
A Plateful of Happiness 