Go for gold when you play around with this financiers recipe
Mini butter cakes with a rich history
Hello! Hello!
I’ll be back home in Paris in less than two weeks! Because I’ll be taking you along — it’s fun to remember that this newsletter launched in Paris in 2021 and that we’ve been back there together a few times since — I thought you might want to get into the mood ahead of time. Of course, you could pull out your beret. Learn a new way to knot a scarf. Perfect a Saint-Germain cocktail. Read JACQUELINE IN PARIS. Or make the beautiful rose and cardamom cake from GÂTEAU. But I had a different something Parisian in mind for us, something that I think will make a great baking project for us this month: Financiers!
Just as I did with our previous projects — cream puffs, tart dough, ice cream and The Daily Bread — I’m sending the recipe out to you as a little dart of inspiration. After that, it’s all yours to play around with and make any way you’d like. If you want to play around with other bakers, then maybe you’d like to join Bake and Tell. Want to play solo? Play away.
A PASTRY WITH A RICH HISTORY
Financiers, the French word which we’ve adopted into the English language, means stockbrokers, and it was for the busy workers at the Paris Bourse, the French stock exchange, that a pastry chef named Lasne with a shop nearby invented these small cakes in the late 19th century. He even named them for his customers.
The story goes something like this. Every day, the stockbrokers would come into the shop looking for an afternoon treat to tide them over. Then, as now, the brokers were in a hurry, so they were always searching for something small and snackable — think of them as the original grab-and-goers. Watching the men (and they were all men) dash in, then eat their sweets on the run, the chef had the brilliant idea to create something that they could eat without knife, fork or spoon, and something that wouldn’t leave crumbs on their cravats. Et voilà, the compact financier was born. That Lasne made the small nut cake in the shape of a gold ingot and assured that it was as rich as the people he was making it for, might have been a sly, sweet wink.
A RICH CAKE WITH SIMPLE INGREDIENTS
The basic ingredients in financiers are, indeed, basic: butter, sugar, flour, eggs (well, just the whites) and ground nuts. They conspire to make a tiny cake that’s rich and buttery, plain but deeply flavorful from the nuts, and possessed of an intriguing bit of bounce – the egg whites at work. I first learned to make these with the Parisian baker Jean-Luc Poujauran, whom I considered the reigning master of simple cakes. While he was best known for his breads, he made three of France’s most famous small, plain cakes — madeleines, cannelés and financiers — and his versions of them drew connoisseurs from all over the city. I remember watching him stirring the butter into the batter and thinking, there’s so much butter, it’ll never blend in. I was right about the butter — there’s a lot! — and wrong about the blending — as much butter as there is, the batter always accepts it. Don’t be tempted to skimp on the butter. You might get a little cake if you do, but you won’t have a financier. For more on the ingredients, scroll down to the recipe.
Illustration by Florine Asch in PARIS SWEETS
As soon as I learned how to make financiers, I went out and bought a dozen molds and a couple of financier pans. But the first time I decided to include a recipe for financiers in one of my cookbooks, I began making them in much-more-common (and more likely to already be in bakers’ cupboards) mini-muffin pans. Now I’m a muffin-pan girl all the way — I love the way the cakes look!
Matcha financiers from BAKING CHEZ MOI
BAKE – PLAY – TELL
You can be sure that when Lasne made his original financiers, he didn’t glaze them, and he certainly didn’t speckle them with sprinkles. Poujauran didn’t either. But gosh, they lend themselves so happily to a bit of whimsy. Because they’re so basic, they’re so easy to play around with. I’ve got some ideas for swaps and plays in the recipe, but I’m sure you’ll have lots more. And you know that I’ll want to see everything you do. If you’d like to post your pretties in BAKE AND TELL, please tag them #financiers. And if you’d like to post them on Instagram or Facebook, please tag me @doriegreenspan so I can find you.
Play around. Bake. Tell. I’ll see you back here on Friday with more Paris sweets.
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BASIC MINI-MUFFIN-PAN FINANCIERS
Photo: Mary Dodd
GOOD TO KNOW BEFORE YOU START
The method: The traditional way to make financiers is to bring the butter to a boil, brown it and keep it warm. Then, in another saucepan, heat the sugar, almonds, salt and egg whites together, cooking and stirring until they’re hot. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour and brown butter. The batter is chilled before using. I’m not certain that you get a markedly different texture with the hot method (you always get a difference in taste from browning butter). If you make it this way, let me know what you think.
Planning: The batter should chill for at least 3 hours (or for up to 3 days) before baking.
The pan: I make these in mini-muffin pans with wells that each hold 2 tablespoons of batter.
The butter: If you want to brown the butter before adding it to the batter, go for it — browned butter adds warmth, emphasizes the nut flavor and deepens the color of the small cakes. To be on the safe side, brown an extra tablespoon or two of the butter and then measure the correct amount of butter when you’re ready to add it to the batter. (You lose a little butter in the browning process.)
The sugar: The original recipe for financiers uses almost equal weights of flour, ground nuts and sugar. When I was working on a recipe for Eating Well magazine, I was asked if I could cut back on the sugar, and I did — I went from 200 grams (1 cup) to 150 grams (3/4 cup) and still loved the cakes. I leave it to you to decide how much sugar you’d like.
The nuts: Most often, financiers are made with ground almonds or hazelnuts, but I’ve made them with pistachios and loved them (I added matcha to the pistachio financiers for both color and flavor — the recipe is in BAKING WITH DORIE). The nuts are play-aroundable. If you don’t have nut flour or meal on hand, you can grind the nuts in a food processor — process the nuts with the sugar and keep a close eye on things so that you don’t over-mix and end up with paste.
The topping: If you’d like to dress up your little financiers, think about dipping the tops in a chocolate glaze — melt 8 ounces (225 grams) of chocolate with 1 1/2 teaspoons of neutral oil. Or consider a baked-in topper — press a berry or a sliver of fruit into the center of each cake before baking.
Possible add-ins: Financiers will take to a touch of spice if you’d like to whisk some into the flour or infuse a flavor into the melted butter.
Makes 24 mini-muffin-pan financiers
INGREDIENTS
12 tablespoons (6 ounces; 170 grams) unsalted butter
3/4 to 1 cup (150 to 200 grams) sugar (see above)
1 cup (100 grams) almond or hazelnut flour (see above)
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
2/3 cup (90 grams) all-purpose flour
6 large egg whites, at room temperature and lightly beaten
Optional topping (see above)
Photo: Mary Dodd
DIRECTIONS
Cook the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until it comes to a boil. Turn off the heat and keep the butter warm while you make the batter.
Working in a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, nut flour and salt. Whisk in the flour. Switch to a flexible spatula and stir the whites into the batter, mixing until they’re thoroughly incorporated. Gradually and gently stir in the butter. There’s a lot of butter and it will take a little while to get it all in – be patient. When the butter is in, the batter will be thick and shiny. Cover the bowl and refrigerate the batter for at least 3 hours. (You can keep the batter in the fridge for up to 3 days.)
Photo: Mary Dodd
When you’re ready to bake: Center a rack in the oven and preheat it to 400 degrees F. Either spray the wells of the muffin tins with baker’s spray or butter them, dust with flour and tap out the excess. Interestingly, you might get a different shape depending on whether you’ve sprayed or buttered the molds. The ones on the left were sprayed; the ones on the right were buttered. Take your pick.
Spray v. butter. Photo: Mary Dodd
Spoon – or scoop – the batter into the tins, filling the cups almost to the top. (If you have more batter than tins, bake in batches, always starting with cool tins.)
Bake the little cakes for 13 to 15 minutes, or until the sides are deeply golden and the tops are crowned and feel springy to the touch.
Photo: Mary Dodd
Remove the tins from the oven, wait 4 or 5 minutes, then flip the cakes out onto a rack. Let sit until they’re just warm or have reached room temperature before serving.
Photo: Mary Dodd
If you’re going to glaze the financiers, wait for them to cool completely.
STORING: Unglazed, the cookies will keep in an airtight container for about 4 days at room temperature or for up to 2 months in the freezer. Glazed, they’ll keep for about 2 days at room temperature.
Photo: Mary Dodd
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