What do you do when Ocado send you some free strawberries? Well you could make a fruit salad, eat them with some sugar or make Eton Mess.
I decided I’d use these strawberries to make financiers, I love how English strawberries are smaller and sweeter than a lot of their foreign relatives. So I thought they would be perfect for these delicate little cakes. Financiers are traditionally a rectangular shape, mimicking a gold bar, hence the name, it is also thought they were popular in the financial district of Paris, near the stock exchange.
I don’t have any financier moulds, but I do have a collection of random petits-fours moulds, ranging from barquettes to mini bundts. So I went to town and filled nearly every mini cake tin I had in the kitchen!
Thankfully the shape is not the only characteristic of a financier, they usually include a beurre noisette, ground almonds and egg whites.
The recipe includes details on how to make a beurre noisette, however Emma over at Poires au Chocolat has written a great post with pictures showing how to make a good beurre noisette. It really is worth trying, as it imparts so much flavour and it’s really not scary at all.
I decided to make these cakes extra nutty by adding some pistachio paste, you can get a great paste from Sous Chef and although it’s subtle, it makes the cakes even more rich.
The little cakes are topped with strawberries just before baking, the delicate batter puffs up and encases the strawberry so that it is just poking through the top of the finished cake. As you would expect, these have a very short cooking time and as soon as they’re removed from the oven they’re dusted with icing sugar and left to cool.
STRAWBERRY & PISTACHIO FINANCIERS
Ingredients
- 100 g Plain Flour
- 250 g Icing Sugar
- 125 g Ground Almonds
- 200 g Egg Whites approx 6 eggs
- 125 g Butter
- 80 g <a href="http://www.souschef.co.uk/pure-pistachio-paste.html">Pistachio Paste</a>
- 12 Strawberries to Decorate
Instructions
- First you need to make the beurre noisette. Get a bowl ready on a heatproof surface and you'll need a fine metal sieve as well.
- Next prepare your tins, the size mould you use is entirely up to you, but you will have to adjust your cooking times accordingly. This will make 12 generous muffin sized financiers or 24 barquettes. Grease the moulds with butter and place them on a baking tray to make it easier to move them around.
- Place the butter in a heavy based saucepan and melt it, keep heating the butter. It will start to bubble up and begin to smell of hazelnuts. Heat the butter until it starts to turn a brown colour.
- As soon as the colour begins to change and darken, take the pan off the heat and strain it into the bowl that you have ready. Leave the butter to cool and be careful as it will be very hot.
- Preheat your oven to 200C/180C fan.
- Sift the plain flour and icing sugar into a large bowl. Add the ground almonds and stir to mix the dry ingredients together.
- Add the egg whites to the dry mixture and beat it well until it is all incorporated together and no dry mixture remains, you'll have to be quite tough with it.
- Next add the pistachio paste and beat this into the egg mixture, by this point you'll have quite a thick paste.
- The beurre noisette should now be cooler, mix this into the batter. You will find it is difficult to mix in the butter, but just persevere they will emulsify.
- Put the batter into a piping bag and fill the moulds/tins of your choice, until you have used all of your batter.
- Take your strawberries, quarter them and then place quarters lightly in the middle of your financiers.
- Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean. When the financiers are baked, dust them with icing sugar and leave them to cool in their tins.
The mini bundts were not baked with strawberries in them, I turned them out, dusted them with icing sugar and then fanned my strawberries by slicing them and glazing them with melted strawberry jam, before setting them atop the cakes.
What would you make with some free strawberries? Or would you just gobble them down?
Thanks for reading.
Angela
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[…] Strawberry & Pistachio Financiers – Patisserie Makes Perfect […]
A kingdom for a Cake
You made some seriously good stuff since my last visit, but these caught my eye, since I also made and loved them recently. I like your strawberry addition:))
PatisserieMakesPerfect
Thank you for the lovely comments, this is the first time I made financiers and they’re really tasty. what flavour did you make?
Jodie Dodd
Free strawberries would be gobbled down in minutes at my house! I love bundt cakes, my mom made the all the time when I was little, and fresh strawberries on top would be awesome! So would a little drizzle of chocolate. Lol, those little tins are so cute. 😀
PatisserieMakesPerfect
The tins are great aren’t they? I love them so much, the free strawberries were delicious and I loved the bundt cakes, I’ll definitely be making them again. I’d never used bundt tins before, I was worried they weren’t go to turn out of the tins!
Jodie Dodd
Greasing and dusting the tin is one of the things I remember most! The large size bundt pans are a pain to dust since you have to work the flour all the way around, up and down and into each groove. My mom was always worried the tops would stick. 😀
PatisserieMakesPerfect
I was frightened of that too! Your Mum is a wise woman! x
Hannah Hossack-Lodge
Making financiers is one of my favourite ways to use up egg whites left over from making ice cream 🙂 Yours look delicious, and I love the assortment of little tins!
PatisserieMakesPerfect
Thank you Hannah. The little tins were an ebay find that I was pretty pleased with. Financiers are great, so many different flavour options and a nice alternative to meringues for using up egg whites.
Walnut & Honey Granola - Bake of the Week - Casa Costello
[…] These Strawberry & Pistachio Financiers would be just perfect at a Summer Afternoon Tea – Patisserie Makes […]
Helen Costello
These look just wonderful – What great taste combinations and fantastic photo settings. Great use of the strawberries you were sent. Thanks once again for joining in #Bakeoftheweek x
PatisserieMakesPerfect
Thanks so much Helen. So pleased you like the look of these, yes it was a great way to use them up!
Lucy - BakingQueen74
These financiers are so pretty Angela, and I love your photos, great styling. I bet they were delicious!
PatisserieMakesPerfect
Thanks Lucy! They were so light and because of the small size, they feel like an acceptable treat 🙂 Perfect with a cup of tea.
PatisserieMakesPerfect
Thanks Louise. The tins are great aren’t they? I was waiting for an excuse to use them. Financiers are fabulous little cakes, just as light and delicate as madeleines, they get even more moist with time too.
Charlotte Oates
Beautiful (as always). Where did you get your petits-four tins from or are they a random selection you’ve collected over time?
PatisserieMakesPerfect
I got them as a job lot on eBay Charlotte. They were a bargain too, so do keep an eye out there. Thanks for the kind comments.
Laura @ a girl & her home
These look delicious! Perfect little treats for enjoying with a cup of tea! I love the sound of the pistachio paste too. Is it more intense than just cooking with ground pistachio?
PatisserieMakesPerfect
The pistachio paste is a little bit more intense, however I used it because I didn’t want to alter the consistency of the cakes. The other option would have been to substitute some of the ground almonds for ground pistachios.
Rebecca Goodman
Sooo cute I love these and those little tins I need some.
PatisserieMakesPerfect
Thanks Rebecca, the tins were an amazing eBay find.
Hannah Webster
Angela these look amazing! The strawberries look so good, I’ve never seen a recipe that tops with fruit before baking rather than after, or fully encasing them in the cake. I’ve just bought some mini bundt tins so definitely one to try!
PatisserieMakesPerfect
Thank you so much Hannah. They taste amazing, really pleased with these. Decorating the cakes with fruit afterwards does make the cakes taste really fresh. I need to buy some mini bundt tins, I only have 5 of the mini bundt tins in the pictures.