I can’t believe I haven’t posted anything on here since May. Despite having more spare time, I’ve found myself concentrating on other things. We’ve been busy working in our garden, going on long dog walks, getting back into jogging, baking energy bars and other more wholesome goodies, not to mention getting into the stride of things working from home.
The other reason I have started baking is because we can see people again. A few weeks back I didn’t have anyone to share the things I made with and it would have been far too much temptation to have it all in the house. Now I am able to regularly visit my parents they are always happy to receive my baking, especially these coffee & walnut financiers.
Coffee and walnut is one of my favourite flavour combinations, I know it can seem a bit retro, but I think it’s fantastic. These delicious little cakes from Yotam Ottolenghi & Helen Goh’s book Sweet are just perfect. The thick fudgy icing and the moist cakes with little nuggets of walnut are a great afternoon treat and they taste so light.
The other great thing about these coffee & walnut financiers is that they are made in a muffin tin, you don’t need any special equipment. The financier typically gets it name from the fact they are traditionally shaped like gold bars. They are also always made with a beurre noisette and ground almonds to keep them moist.
Coffee & Walnut Financiers
Ingredients
- 80 g Walnuts
- 120 g Unsalted Butter
- 220 g Icing Sugar
- 90 g Plain Flour
- 1 tsp Baking Powder
- 1/4 tsp Salt
- 80 g Ground Almonds
- 230 g Egg Whites (approx 6 large eggs)
- 1 tbsp Instant Coffee
- 70 ml Boiling Water
- 1 1/2 tsp Ground Espresso
- 250 g Icing Sugar
- 2 1/2 tsp Instant Coffee
- 35 ml Hot Milk
- 12 Walnut Halves
Instructions
- Heat the oven to 170C/335F/gas mark 3. Spread the walnuts out on a baking tray, and cook for 10 minutes. When they're cool enough to touch, chop them into 1/2cm sized pieces.
- Next make the brown butter. Place the butter in a small saucepan and cook over a medium heat until melted. Continue to cook until the butter is foaming, swirling the pan so the solids brown more evenly. Leave the butter to bubble away until it turns a rich golden brown, then take off the heat and leave to stand for five minutes. Strain through a sieve, discarding the solids, then leave to cool slightly.
- The brown butter should still be warm when you fold it into the mix, too hot, it will “cook” the egg whites; too cool, it will be hard to incorporate.
- While the butter is cooling, sift the icing sugar, flour, baking powder and salt into a large bowl, then whisk in the ground almonds.
- Take the coffee granules and dissolve them in the boiling water and place to one side.
- Place the egg whites in a bowl and use a whisk to froth them up a little, pour the egg whites and dissolved coffee granules into the dry ingredients, stir until just combined.
- Add the browned butter and mix until the batter is thick, shiny and smooth. Fold in the walnuts and ground coffee, then cover with cling-film and refrigerate for at least two hours.
- Heat the oven to 200C/390F/gas mark 6. Butter the moulds of your chosen muffin tin, dust with flour and tap away any excess. Spoon the batter into each mould, depending on the size of your muffin tin they will be almost full – but they don't rise too much. Bake them for about 25 minutes, test with a skewer and if it comes out clean they're cooked.
- Make the icing while the financiers are baking. Sift the icing sugar into a medium bowl, dissolve the coffee in the hot milk and add to the icing sugar and mix until smooth, then set aside.
- Remove the tin from the oven, set aside the financiers to cool for five minutes then turn the cakes out of the tin and put the financiers on a rack to cool.
- To serve, spread the icing on top and finish each financier with a walnut half. These keep well for about 3-4 days in an airtight container at room temperature.
Thanks for reading.
Angela
Veronika
Dear Angela, thank you for the recipe.
I would like to leave a few comments with regards to making it, if you allow me.
1st of all, they have super coffee flavour 🙂 so you have to be a coffee lover to eat them:) especially the icing. I think in the future I might reduce the amount of coffee I put in the icing.
2. Once I mixed the liquid ingredients with dry, I felt like the dough was still too liquidy. Baring in mind that it will firm up in the fridge I still felt it has to much liquid in it. I am not sure if whisking eggs almost to the soft picks might help?! Maybe worth trying it, I whisk mine as described just to make it bubbly and frothy. In the end, I put extra 2 tsp of flour as I thought my dough is too thin.
3. Icing. When it come to icing, my initial thought was that 35 ml of hot milk is not enough. Once mixed milk with icing sugar it just turned into very thick brown paste. I did add a bit of extra milk to thinner it up and it end up perfect. For the future, as I wrote earlier, I might use less coffee for the icing as it was a bit too strong for me (saying that, I should point out the I am a cappuccino drinker, not espresso. So I can not deal with strong coffee flavour, although I love coffee and walnut cake) .
Resolution: Very tasty recipe. I quiet enjoyed making it, as well as eating, and sharing with my neighbor. I end up with 12 of them for the quantity of ingredients described above. ( I was using general muffin tin, which is 3cm/1.5 inch deep). The amount of icing sugar ingredients, ware exactly perfect for this amount to cover them generously.
I was baking 180 degrees C, but keep in mind your oven strength. I believe 25 min is exactly perfect. Please, make sure to check on them once time run up. I almost forgot to take mine out of the oven, once its beeped. I think i left it for 10 extra minutes which made outside a bit dry ( but still super moist and tasty inside). My suggestion, do not make selfies while baking 😉
I hope my baking journey will help someone.
Thank you so much for sharing this recipe with us and for beautiful photos.
Kind regards,
Veronika
patisseriemakesperfect
Veronika – thank you for your detailed comments, the main characteristics of a financier is that it is a light runny batter that will thicken when left in the fridge, as the ground almonds will absorb some of the moisture. This is why the finished cake is so light. Therefore adding extra flour or whipping the egg whites would create a completely different cake entirely. I’m afraid you had to trust in the recipe at this point.
Thank you for your comments about the icing, for me it worked, but you can adjust the amount of liquid to suit the consistency you need. With regards to the coffee flavour, I personally like how strong the coffee flavour is, but then I enjoy espresso and americano.
Glad they turned out well in the end.
Clara
Hi these look amazing, just a question: you mention glucose in the ingredients but it’s not brought up anywhere in the actual recipe. Where is it meant to be used?
patisseriemakesperfect
Hi, I’m so sorry, this was a recipe I adapted and I didn’t actually use the liquid glucose in the finished recipe. I have deleted it from the ingredients list.
Thanks for letting me know about the error.
Nic | Nic's Adventures & Bakes
Thanks for sharing, these look amazing 🙂
patisseriemakesperfect
Thanks so much – they taste delicious – I am a huge coffee fiend!