The popular French cake ‘Friand’ is well known as ‘Financier’ in Japan, and they are usually baked in the shape of Bar of Gold. ‘Financier’ means ‘Financial’, and that’s why ‘Financier’ cakes are in that shape. I don’t have such specialised tins, so I bake them using muffin tins.

Makes

8 Cakes

Ingredients

100g Butter *browned and strained
3 Egg Whites
100g Caster Sugar *about 100ml
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
3/4 cup Almond Meal
1/4 cup Self-Raising Flour *plus extra to dust the muffin tins
1 tablespoon Matcha Powder

Method
  1. Preheat the oven to 180℃. Grease 8 muffin tins with Butter and dust the base of each tin with Flour.
  2. To make Burnt Butter, heat Butter in a saucepan until the foam fills up the saucepan. That’s the point I remove the saucepan from the heat. You really can’t see the Butter because of the foam, but the Butter is light brown by then. Set aside and cool.
  3. Combine Egg White, Caster Sugar and Vanilla Extract in a mixing bowl. You do not need to whip the mixture. Just mix until well combined.
  4. Sift in Flour, Almond Meal and Matcha Powder, and mix well. Then add cooled but still warm Butter, straining through a tea strainer or similar to remove the browned milk solids, and mix well.
  5. Spoon the mixture into 8 muffin tins and bake for 15 minutes or until just firm to the touch. Cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn out on a wire rack.
  6. *Note: You can add some White Chocolate Chips OR Nuts such as Macadamia Nuts.