CHERRY CUPCAKE FINANCIERS

Awww....these little Cherry Financiers made the Top 9  on Foodbuzz ~ 11th July ~ Happy Buzzday! Thank you to the Foodbuzz community :)

I would never have attempted these cakes because I never did like the flavour of almonds. I also imagined that for a cake to be called financier it couldn't be a good thing and because I believed madeleine-like cakes to be simply dry sponge cakes. 

So I was glad when Sarah-Jane of siliconeMoulds.com had posted some financiers on her lovely blog and made them look anything but dry, financial or mercenary. Now I know how delicious these little cakes are.

They were literally bursting over the top, each with a big, juicy, red cherry that looked like it was trying to burrow its way in but failing quite miserably because it was simply too fat. And too cute.

And true to what Sarah-Jane had said....these were simply, simply delicious. Very moist because of the double proportion of ground almonds to flour, the browned butter gave it a beautiful nutty flavour, it also had not the almondy flavour that was not to my liking and of course, for me, the big fat adorable juicy cherry just topped it all. 


And a little history before the recipe : According to Wikipedia they are believed to be called financiers because they became popular in the financial district of Paris around the Paris stock exchange. They were originally believed to be baked in small rectangular moulds thus resembling gold ingots which could be another reason they were called financiers.

The Recipe ~ adapted wholly from Sarah-Jane of SiliconeMoulds.com

I had doubled the recipe below because I baked them in normal  sized cupcake cases. I got 6 lovely bursting with cherry financiers. 

70 gm ground almonds

105 gm icing sugar

35 gm plain flour

92 gm butter ( I used salted)

92 gm egg whites ( I used 3 eggs)

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp vanilla extract

6 fresh whole cherries with stems attached

Preheat the oven to 200 C

Brown the butter to a nut brown.

Sift all dry ingredients into a medium bowl and mix well. (I used an electric mixer). Add in the egg whites and mix until evenly blended. Add the hot browned butter and mix it in quickly until the mixture is well mixed.

Pour into prepared cupcake cases almost right to the top. ( I had a space of about 1/8 of an inch between the edge of the rim and the top of the batter). Then top with a whole cherry on each with its stem attached.

Put in the oven and bake at 200 C for 10 minutes after which I reduced the temperature to 180 C and baked for about another 15-20 minutes until the cakes were risen, golden brown and cooked firmly in the centre. Test with a toothpick. If it comes out clean without anything gooey attached its done. 

(You may tent the cakes with a piece of foil if it gets brown too quickly while the centre is not cooked yet).