Financiers: Tips & Techniques

[David Lebovitz]

Ok, after spending a semi-sleepless night worrying about imperfect financiers (pastry people are obsessed, aren't we?) I went to Dehilleron and bought some metal financier molds to try again. I had asked Nick Malgieri what he thought and he mentioned that it may be the fault of the Flexipans. I asked the salesclerk at Dehilleron and he told me that many people had problems with the Flexipans as well.

Grrrr.

So I tried one last batch. Waited until they emerged from my oven, flipped one out and...

....air pockets!

Oh well, can't say I didn't try. Here's the recipe I finally came up with. Thanks for all your helpful suggestions.

Chocolate Financiers

Makes about 15 one-inch financiers

6 tablespoons (3 ounces/90 gr) unsalted butter, cut into pieces

1 cup (90 gr) sliced almonds

3 tablespoons (20 gr) Dutch-process unsweetened cocoa powder

1 (10 gr) flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (90 gr) powdered sugar

1/3 cup egg whites (about 2 whites from extra-large eggs)

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat the oven to 425º F (220º C). Lightly grease financier molds, or ungreased Flexipan, and place on sturdy baking sheet.

1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and set aside until room temperature.

2. In a food processor or blender, grind the almond with the cocoa, flour, salt and powdered sugar. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl.

3. Stir the egg whites in the ground almond mixture, then gradually stir in the melted butter until incorporated and smooth.

4. Spoon the batter into the molds, filling them 3/4’s full.

5. Bake for 10-15 minutes, until slightly puffed and springy to the touch. Remove from oven and cool completely before removing from molds.

6. Fill any air bubbles in the bottom with ganache (...just kidding!)

[Wendy DeBord]

Well I sort of ran into similar yesterday at work. I was baking some petite cakes in a rose shaped mold I have, and NOTHING would get the air pockets out for me. The batter was pretty heavy and the pans edges didn't sloop outward so when I tapped the heck out of it, the air remained where it was in the first place. It couldn't rise thru the thick batter or slide around to the side of the pan and then upward...it was trapped.

The way to resolve this is to pipe your batter into your pan. Keep you bag close to the bottom of your mold so your really forcing the batter into full contact with the pan. That should work.

Also I really want to thank-you for sharing your recipe, thanks!

[tan319]

Hi All!

I was making chocolate financiers and an orange scented one in those mini flexi molds and just chalked up any little holes in the bottom to...?

The chocolates were the only ones to do it semi regularly.

Didn't stop them from being superfine to eat though.

Oh, I baked them at 350 convection, fan high usually, about 15 minutes, egg whites barely beated, folded in.

[melmck]

This is my favorite financier recipe:

20 oz. browned butter

1 vanilla bean, split & scraped

10 oz. ground almonds

10 oz. AP flour

30 oz. powdered sugar, sifted

2 1/2 C. egg whites

1/2 tsp. sea salt

Put vanilla bean into browned butter and let cool slightly. Mix dry ingredients, add whites and then drizzle in butter. Spray molds and fill halfway. Covection oven 325 degrees.

[nightscotsman]

I was testing a new chocolate financier recipe this weekend to see if it was better than the one we made in school. I baked both recipes in various shapes of silicone molds (Silicone Flex brand) and the low and behold I got the dreaded air bubbles on the bottoms of the recipe from class. However, the new recipe came out perfectly smooth with no deformations. The two recipes did vary slightly in ingredient proportions, but the new recipe did contain about 2 grams of baking powder that the old recipe didn't. While they didn't rise much more than the others, it's possible that may have made the difference.

Anyway, something to try.

[helenjp]

A friend showed me some financiers she wasn't happy with today - rather heavy texture, with centers a bit translucent, although they were not undercooked. As she is a qualified pastry instructor, she was ticked off! You may see her here on eGullet in due course, but meanwhile...

Likely causes?

Several Japanese recipes specify at least as much butter as eggwhite (by weight), which is a higher proportion than any of the recipes given in this topic.

I suspect that part of her trouble is that she didn't really get the butter to a noisette stage, so maybe there was too much moisture....or maybe she mixed the butter in when it was too hot...or maybe there was just too much butter?

What about sugar - is the fineness of the granulation a big issue - I'm inclined to think not, though Japanese granulated sugar is quite coarse, while the conventional sugar is slightly moist and has some invert sugar in it - should be fine for financiers?

Flour - what sort of protein content would be best here? She's an organics enthusiast, so I'm guessing she may have used a domestic flour with no more than 10% protein maximum.

Nut flours - recipes in this thread vary from equal parts nuts/flours to around 3 parts nuts/1 part flours. Preferences?

And finally...what kind of texture do you think of as ideal for financiers? Somewhere I read that they are basically the same as madeleines, but that doesn't ring a bell with me at all - I'm quite happy to have my teeth meet a little resistance in a financier...wrong?

[alanamoana]

just a quick response with regard to texture: recipes i've used (and i love financiers) call for baking at a high temperature at first and then lowering the temp partway through baking. this way, you get a great crust with a dense and moist interior. i've definitely had them come out a bit 'translucent' in the middle without being raw...possibly just a touch underbaked.

here's my favorite recipe:

7 oz almond meal

7 oz powdered sugar (american versions do have some cornstarch in it)

3/4 C granulated sugar (table sugar)

9 oz egg whites

2 tablespoons liqueur of your choice

splash of vanilla extract

3/4 C all purpose flour (american all purpose is around 11% protein)

pinch salt

7 oz browned butter (weight after cooking)

please excuse the fact that i have volume and weight in the same recipe. this is a very old recipe of mine. you can see how it compares to the recipe that your friend uses.

[helenjp]

The texture you describe sounds just perfect. Would you reduce oven temp to around 180C/350F, or down as far as 160C/325F?

She has a newish and fairly small oven - I'm thinking that maybe temps are dropping too far when she puts the batter in at the beginning.

I checked her recipe earlier today - nearly twice as much butter by weight as sugar or egg whites, and her recipe called for whole egg too. So I gave her Nightscotsman's recipe to try.

Your recipe's instruction to weigh butter after browning sounds sensible - I'll work out a conversion and try it. At a glance, it looks as if the proportions are pretty similar to nightscotsman's and similar recipes, but with more flour/nut meal.

[alanamoana]

when using a commercial convection oven, i'd start baking at around 400F and reduce to 325-350F. i realized that the most recent times i've baked these, it has been at home in a crappy NOT calibrated oven, so who knows what temp i'm baking at. i do keep a pizza stone in my oven all the time which i think helps to hold the heat in the oven a little bit better. you can recommend that to your friend.

i think the extra butter and the egg yolks might make her recipe much heavier. let us know how they turn out.

[afoodie]

HI,

I want to try the financier recipe from my new Paco Torreblanca's book which is written in Spanish and English and in the recipe he uses „mantequilla avellana“ what is translated as hazelnut butter – most recipes that I know call for beurre noisette, also called brown butter so I am whandering if maybe the translation is wrong?

[alanamoana]

HI,

I want to try the financier recipe from my new Paco Torreblanca's book which is written in Spanish and English and in the recipe he uses „mantequilla avellana“ what is translated as hazelnut butter – most recipes that I know call for beurre noisette, also called brown butter so I am whandering if maybe the translation is wrong?

←

noisette = hazelnut in french

so, while we english speakers call it brown butter, in other languages it really is called 'hazelnut' butter, which i think is just because of the nutty aroma

[LoneSavant]

The best financier I've had in awhile was at the Standard Baking Company in Portland, ME...it was dense and firm, instead of puffy and cakey, supremely chewy, and so carmelized and buttery tasting that I was amazed it didnt ooze butter when i bit into it.

I've been trying to recreate it ever since, to no avail. All the recipes I try turn out tender, delicate little almond cakes with a faint perfume of beurre noisette-- which are great, but I want a SBC rustic, chewy, caramel confection! Help!

[Tiny]

Recipe we learned in cookies class...pretty tasty....

FINANCIER

Ingredient Amount

Almond flour 1# 1 oz

Sugar 12 oz.

Cornstarch 3 oz

Salt pinch

Egg whites 12 oz.

Honey 4 oz

Butter, (noissette) 10 oz.

Raspberries or blueberries, frozen

Method:

1. Make the buerre noissette first, and set aside to cool.

2. Combine the dry ingredients.

3. Add egg whites in parts. Mix until combined. Add honey. Scrape.

4. Slowly add the melted butter until incorporated.

Scaling Instructions:

Pipe into tartlet molds (black rubber mats) Garnish with frozen fruit (raspberries, blueberries) before baking.

Baking Instructions:

Bake in a 375°F oven until the edges are light brown.

[Kerry Beal]

Resurrecting this thread - made a batch of financiers this am in metal tins and got the dreaded holes mentioned above. Had always assumed it was secondary to the silicone flexipans I bake them in at home.

Interestingly the second pan I baked which had a little less batter per and sat for 30 minutes or so before baking had minimal to no holes.

Third batch - sat longer - more holes - so much for that theory.

[FrogPrincesse]

Holes in financiers? I never had this problem. What recipe are you using Kerry? I bake mine in normal (not mini) muffin pans that I fill half full.

[Kerry Beal]

But with pecans in place of the walnuts -

Walnut Financiers (Servings: --)

• ⅔ cup beurre noisette, 150 grams
• 1 ½ cups icing sugar, 190 grams
• 1 cup walnuts ground, pecans 100 grams
• ½ cup flour, 70 grams
• 5 egg whites, 155 grams
• 2 tbsp stroh rum
• 1 tsp vanilla

1.grind nuts with sugar and flour in processor. stir in whites, booze and beurre noisette.

2.450º F 5 minutes, 400º F 10 minutes

[FrogPrincesse]

For comparison purposes, here is the recipe I use from Anne Willan's Country Cooking of France.

1 cup (250 g) butter

3/4 cup (100 g) ground almonds

3/4 cup (100 g) flour

1 1/4 cup (300 g) powdered sugar

8 egg whites (1 cup/250 mL)

Sift flour and sugar into a saucepan, add ground almonds. Add whisked egg whites. Stir mixture over low heat until warm. Add melted butter. Fill buttered molds halfway.

425F oven 17-20 min, Cool 5 min then unmold.