Almond and berry financier recipe

Details

• Cuisine: French
• Recipe Type: Cake
• Difficulty: Easy
• Preparation Time: 30 mins
• Cooking Time: 15 mins
• Serves: 9

Step-by-step

1. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/Gas Mark 6. Use little of the butter to grease the moulds.
2. Melt the butter in a pan and continue heating, allowing it to gently bubble until it turns a nutty brown colour. Be careful not to let it burn. Cooking the butter this way will give a distinctive nutty flavour to the finished cakes.
3. Once this has been achieved, take it off the heat, pass through a fine sieve, add the vanilla bean paste and leave to cool. It may also benefit from being passed through a sieve.
4. Separate the eggs, placing the egg whites into the bowl of your mixer and keeping the yolks for another recipe. Whisk the whites until they are frothy and have turned white but don’t whisk them as much as you would when making a meringue. Stop just before they become thick and very white – they are whisked enough when individual bubbles are still visible.
5. Sieve the flour and icing sugar into a bowl then add the almonds, making sure they are also lump free.
6. Sprinkle the mixture onto the egg whites and using a large metal spoon or rubber spatula, fold together. Be gentle yet assertive, you want to retain as much air in the egg whites as possible.
7. Once all of the dry ingredients have been mixed through, pour in the melted butter. Use the same folding action to mix until the butter is well combined. It may seem like the butter won’t incorporate at first, but it will, just keep folding gently.
8. When the batter is ready, spoon into the greased moulds, filling each three quarters full.
9. Top each one with a suitable sized berry and/or a piece of fruit then give each topping a gentle push down in to the mix. Alternatively, flaked almonds could be used.
10. Bake for about 15 minutes. The time may differ depending on the size of your moulds but you can check them by inserting a skewer into the centre of a financier. If it comes out clean, they are ready. I always remove one from its mould at this point, splitting it in half, just to make sure they’re cooked through before removing the rest from the oven.
11. Once cooked, dust with icing sugar once if you like.

Recipe from Soulful Baker by Julie Jones, published by Jacqui Small.