Financiers for Lisa
This is for Lisa at La Mia Cucina, a fantastic food blog that I check every day for tasty recipes and oh-so-yummy photos!
This recipe came from Clotilde over at Chocolate & Zucchini. The original recipe I used to use came from Stephanie Alexander’s “The Cooks Companion”, but unfortunately my food processor was never up to the challenge of turning blanched almonds into almond meal, and it’s a lot more involved. This recipe is good when you want to turn out a batch of almondy goodness in about 5 minutes, not including baking time of course 
Ingredients
125g caster sugar
125g almond meal (also referred to as ground almonds or almond powder)
2 eggs
70g butter
20g flour
1. Preheat oven to 200 degrees C
2. Melt butter in a small bowl, set aside to cool slightly
3. Combine sugar and almond meal in a seperate bowl, add eggs and mix in well with a fork. Pour in melted butter, mix to combine, then add sifted flour and mix well again.
4. Butter the moulds (highly recommended even if you have a non-stick mini muffin tin, these suckers are sticky!), and fill each mould to the 3/4 mark.
5. Bake for 10-15 minutes (for mini muffin tins, it may be slightly more for larger tins). They will puff up slightly and turn golden and slightly crusty along the edges. Remove from the oven when the edges look darker and the tops are beautiful and golden.
6. Leave to sit in the moulds for about 5 minutes before removing them. You may want to let them cool upside down once removed, as the sides and bottoms are a bit sticky.
This recipe can be flavoured in many ways - lemon juice & rind, coffee granules, cocoa, or by putting berries, nuts or chocolate chips on top. They’re tiny and delicious and the perfect mouthful - but make sure they’re not too accessible or you may end up devouring the lot in one sitting!
Now, Stephanie Alexander says in her book “The Cooks Companion” that financiers and friands are the same thing, however I don’t believe that to be the case, as the texture of both are quite different. Financiers are light and textured, while the friands that I’ve eaten (and that’s quite a few, as they’re my favourite accompaniment to tea and are served in almost every cafe in Melbourne) are a lot more dense and cakey, and taste infinetely better when refrigerated, as when they’re warm they’re a bit thick (whilst losing their denseness) and the taste of the crumb is a bit less impressive.
I’d make my white chocolate and raspberry friands and post the recipe, but I went to the supermarket this morning and a TINY punnet of about 20 berries costs $8.00!! I love winter for it’s many delights such as pumpkin soup and roasts, but goddamn it! I can’t justify spending $8.00 on not even one sitting of berries in cream…
Technorati Tags: financiers, mini muffins, baked, friands
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Well they are just adorable! And now I have a better idea, thank you! thank you! I don’t blame you one bit about the berries, I won’t buy them here when they aren’t in season and on sale either. Okay, this recipe has been put into my recipe notebook and you can bet yer sweet patootie I’ll be giving them a try!
Thanks again, sweetie.