Let's make tiny French almond cakes called financiers with a Japanese twist and a simple recipe !
If you know how to make financiers, you might think it needs a lot of work as you need to make brown butter in a sauce pan to create the nice toasty flavor. For this recipe, without making brown butter, you can add a nice flavor to the financiers with salt-pickled sakura blossoms.
What's Salt-pickled Sakura Blossoms and How to Use them
These salt-pickled sakura blossoms are lovely in cooking and for adding a unique flavor and color to desserts. I would like you to try the sakura flavor, if you've never had it.
Read more about the sakura flavor from Kudzu-yu (Kudzu root Tea) Recipe
The blossoms are too salty to use as they are, so soak them in water for 5-10 minutes, and drain before using. A slight salty flavor after the process works very well with the financiers.
The Benefit of Using Rice Flour
White rice flour (Komeko in Japanese) is used for this recipe. It's gluten-free flour, so, even if you are a gluten allergic or intolerant, you can enjoy them.
Rice flour makes your cooking easy, too. Mixing is very easy, compared to wheat flour, as it doesn't contain gluten. The mixture will never become sticky even if you mix a lot or mix in a bad way. So, children can help to make it.
Also, you don't need to sieve it before using as rice flour is super-fine.
Baking tray
There is a mold for financier, but if you don’t have such a mold, you can use a mini muffin tin instead.
Let's start !
Sakura Financier (French Almond Cake) Recipe
INGREDIENTS
[ For 12 financiers ]
3 egg whites
75g/2.6oz of sugar
35g/1.5oz of white rice flour
45g/1.6oz of almond powder
90g/3oz of unsalted butter
5g/ 0.2oz of salted sakura blossoms for the filling
12 pieces for topping, one for each financier
INSTRUCTIONS
1 Prepare sakura blossoms. Soak in water for 5-10 minutes and drain, chop some finely for the filling. Put the butter in a small cup and put it in hot water or microwave to melt.
2 Preheat the oven to 180℃/360 °F and grease or oil on the mold.
3 Place the egg whites and the sugar in a bowl, whisk together.
4 Add the almond powder and the rice flour, and mix well until well combined.
5 Add the melted butter and stir well, and add the chopped sakura blossoms and mix them.
6 Pour the mixture into the mold, and add sakura blossoms on top.
7 Bake for 15-20 minutes at 180℃/360°F.
I enjoyed them with Wakoucha (Japanese black tea) and Sencha green tea. Enjoy the cake s with your favorite tea!
Today's Recommendations
Salt-pickled Sakura Blossoms
Iijima Seitarou Shoten KN003: Salt-Pickled Sakura Blossoms (Japanese-grown) 桜花の塩漬
Tea with the financiers
・Wakoucha, Japanese black tea
Ogura Tea Garden: Yabukita Wakocha First Flush Black Tea from Ashigara, Kanagawa
Farmer Yuki Ogura produces this black tea in the style of first flush Darjeeling tea, withered, rolled, then lightly oxidized with Yabukita cultivar tea plants. Grown without the use of pesticides.
・Sencha green tea
NaturaliTea #19: 2022 Mountain-grown Fukamushi Sencha, Yabukita
They create a unique balance between astringency (shibumi) and sweetness (amami), with hints of the soft young leaf buds grown on the mountain. Grown without the use of pesticides.
Recipes with Sakura
Eat and Taste Sakura Blossoms! - Sakura Biscuits Recipe
Sakura Daifuku Mochi (さくら大福) Recipe
2件のコメント
Thank you for your comment.
I recommend,
1 Don’t dry the blossoms too much after soaking them.
The water in the blossoms will prevent them from getting brown.
2 Choose the products with bright pink colors.
There are many products for salted sakura blossoms. Some products don’t have bright colors like the photo in the article. I used the product on the recommendation list. It’s kept a nice color on the blossoms.
I hope you can have a nice cake with a lovely pink color.
How do you prevent the color of the Sakura from changing after baking. Won’t it turn brown.