Brown Butter Stone Fruit Financiers

An easy treat for a weekend picnic

Hello Everyone!

Hope you’re all doing okay in the heat. I know to anyone outside the UK, you might be looking at us like, really? Do you think 28ºC 82ºF is hot? But please give us a modicum of pity, our country isn’t designed for heat, and neither are we. I live in a Victorian house which was designed for the cold, designed to hold onto heat, which means it acts like a storage heater, it stays hot 24 hours a day, it doesn’t cool down in the evenings like a Spanish villa, once it gets hot it stays that way, making sleep a complete pain. You’ll also hardly ever see a house here with aircon; most of the year it would be pointless, so if you see us complain, know that our pasty white selves are really not used to heat like this. As such, this week's baking has been kept as low-key as possible, although I found myself standing over a pan of browning butter far too often for someone trying to stay cool.

For paid subscribers, this week, I have my ultimate summertime dessert, a tiramisu affogato made with a fabulous mascarpone semifreddo, a dessert that involves no heat whatsoever. A total joy!

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Tiramisu Affogato

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For this week's free recipe, I have something that does require a little heat, but thankfully is very quick and easy to make, and just the thing should you be going on a picnic this weekend. I made another batch earlier today and will be finding a shady place somewhere picturesque to spend a leisurely day relaxing and enjoying these little treats.

The recipe is for financiers, a classic French cake made with browned butter and ground almonds. The story goes that a baker in the financial centre of Paris wanted to make something for his customers, which they could eat on the go and not worry about getting crumbs on their expensive clothes. He came up with a little almond cake, which he baked in the shape of gold bars; he called them financiers. Now, like many stories of French baking, I would take this with a pinch of salt. There is a second origin story that says these cakes were originally created in the Lorraine region of France, by 17th-century nuns. Considering the way food evolves and is adapted over the years, It’s likely that financiers were a take on the cake the nuns came up with. Whatever the truth, these little cakes are incredibly easy to make and so delicious.

For my version here, I also took a little inspiration from Flor, the sadly now closed bakery, that made a version of the financier using browned butter but replacing the more common icing sugar with Panela, an unrefined sugar from South America. This sugar has an incredible amount of flavour and really helps turn these little cakes into something different altogether. If you can't get your hands on the sugar you could use jaggery or any other unrefined brown sugar that you have. The cake is made mainly with ground almonds but does use a little flour as well. For this version I opted for Einkorn, a heritage form of wheat which has a wonderful flavour that really sits perfectly alongside the brown butter and the Panela sugar. Again, if you cant get your hands on it, plain flour or plain wholemeal flour will also work well.

Brown Butter Stone Fruit Financiers

Makes 12

160g unsalted butter, diced

4 large egg whites

100g ground almonds

60g einkorn flour

200g panela sugar

1/2 tsp flaked sea salt

1 large peach or nectarine

Small handful of flaked almonds

Add the butter to a small saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until the butter has fully melted and browned. Initially, the butter will splatter as the water evaporates out of the fat. Once the spluttering has stopped, the butter will start to foam, and this is when you need to keep a close eye on the pan, watching for brown flecks to appear. Once the butter is nicely brown and smells nutty, remove it from the heat and pour it into a small bowl, making sure to scrape out all the browned bits. These are browned milk solids and a big contributor to the flavour, so we don’t want to waste them.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg whites until they hold soft peaks. In a separate bowl, whisk together the almonds, flour, sugar and salt. The Panela sugar can clump, so break up any lumps with your fingers. Add the egg whites to the dry goods and fold together until a smooth batter is formed. You won't be retaining any real air from the whites, so don’t be despaired that the whites collapse as you mix everything together. Once a batter is formed, pour in the browned butter and whisk until a smooth cake batter is formed. Refrigerate the batter for an hour before using.

Lightly grease a 12-hole muffin pan (or a friand pan if you have one). Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC Fan)

Spoon or pipe the batter into the prepared pan so that each mould is filled up with the same amount; For this, I like to use an ice cream scoop so that doing so is easy. Cut the stone fruit in half, removing the stone. Cut the fruit into thin slices and add a couple to the top of each portion of batter. Scatter over a few flaked almonds and then bake.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until the cakes spring back to a light touch and are pulling away from the sides of the pan. Remove the pan from the oven and allow the cakes to cool for 5 minutes before carefully turning them out onto a wire rack to cool completely. Kept in a sealed container, these will keep for 2 days. Without the fresh fruit, they would keep up to 5 days.