Almond financier with raspberries

I’ve wanted to prepare financiers for quite a while – I always enjoyed eating them but never dared to try to bake them. Next to the madeleine, the financier is probably the most popular little French cake, common for breakfast or afternoon snacking (or “goûter”). It is made of finely ground almonds, egg whites, butter and powdered sugar. The name comes from their shape: they are usually formed to look like a brick of gold. If they come out well, they should have crusty exterior and a moist interior, tasting almost as if they were filled with almond paste. To give them some summer taste, I’ve added raspberries and changed a bit the traditional form…and yes, they still taste very good!

Yield: 10 small size financiers

Ingredients: 

• 110g powder sugar
• 100g butter (room Temperature)
• 45g flour
• 60g fine ground almonds
• 3 egg whites
• 20 raspberries – 2 for each
• optional: 1 tea spoon of amaretto (my personal touch )

Step by step:

• Preheat your oven to 190ºC.
• Mix powder sugar, ground almonds and flour together.

• Add egg whites and fold everything well together until you get smooth consistency.

• Once the egg whites are well mixed in, add butter and continue mixing. To make it easier to mix in the butter, you can as well melt it and then cool it down to room temperature.

• When the butter is well mixed in, add a splash of amaretto at the end.

• Fill the molds with the financiers paste and add two raspberries on top. As mentioned before, the typical forms are rectangular, form but I used round madeleine molds instead.

• Bake at 190ºC for 15-20min. If needed, leave them for longer – this will depend from your oven. Take them out once they’re lightly brown.

Enjoy!