financier, two flavours

This little almond cake was a birthday treat dedicated to myself on my birthday this year. :) I can't remember when did my mum started buying me a Sara Lee pound cake for my birthday every year, in fact till last year. This year however, I decided to make my own instead.

While writing this post, I began wondering why I don't seem to remember my family celebrating birthdays every year with a creamed birthday cake and candles. So I asked my mum about it and that's when I knew that our family tradition is to have two hard-boiled eggs every year for our birthday, a tradition passed down from her parents. Anyhow, I don't seem to remember it cos' maybe for us kids, only seeing presents and cakes would leave a memorable impression on us. :P

While this doesn't seem to be anything elaborate considering it's a once a year thingy, the whole meaning behind ths simple act is worth mentioning. Still, I was considered much more fortunate as compared to my elder brothers as I did have a few "big" birthday celebrations where my mum would buy a birthday cake and prepared fried chicken wings, fishballs, bee hoon and so on and invited my cousins and close friends. I would then stand at the centre in front of the birthday cake, with my cousins around where we posed for photographs. :)

Slowly as I grow older, birthdays were spent with friends and my mum would just gave me an ang bao. Some years back, she started buying me a Sara Lee Pound cake and this continues. As far as I can remember, a Sara Lee pound cake used to cost $3.50 but today it has gone up to $4.90!

Hey I've been mentioning pound cake but why financier? My first thought was to bake a pound cake but eventually I settled for this financier because of the leftover egg whites sitting in my fridge since pre-cny. I also wanted to try more recipes from cook books which I've been buying but hardly try out the recipes.

The result of this little financier is lovely. It is a dense cake with soft crumbs. I like baked goods with ground almonds because it adds that lovely kind of texture.

I like the original flavour (vanilla) but the green tea flavour taste just as good. This is best eaten delicately with a fork because only then you can savour the texture and it is rather sweet. :D

I'm sharing this recipe from "Okashi Treats" by keiko ishida. Enjoy!

Almond Financier

50g cake flour

5g corn flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

130g egg whites

130g castor sugar (i reduced to 110g and stll taste sweet to me)

50g ground almonds

a pinch of salt

130g unsalted butter

10g green tea powder

1. Preheat oven to 220°C. Lightly grease small tins with a little butter and place them on a baking sheet. Sift all dry ingredients (except salt) twice. Add green tea flour if making green tea financier.
2. Place egg whites into a clean bowl and beat lightly. Add sugar, ground almonds, flour mixture and salt each at a time and mix well without over-mixing. Set aside.
3. Brown butter in a small saucepan over medium-low heat, whisking frequently until fragrant and golden brown in colour. Pour butter into a mixing bowl. Place the bowl with browned butter into a larger bowl half-filled with ice water to stop it from cooking further and burning.
4. Add browned butter to flour and almond mixture and mix well.
5. Pour better into prepared cake moulds.
6. Bake financier for 10-15 minutes until they are light and golden in colour.
7. Remove cakes from moulds and cool on wire rack before serving.

Can be kept in airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days, or 1 month in the freezer.

Step 3 refers to the making of clarified butter. The melted butter actually hardened after I transferred to a larger bowl. I thought the ice water is supposed to stop it from cooking further? Have I done anything wrong? :P