Financiers

The other day Rosanne asked me,
"What is a financier? I bought a 'financier' thinking it was a madeleine since it was oval shaped. Pas de tout. 
Normalement a true financier is shaped like a mini gold brick.
All of about 3" long, full of luscious browned butter(beurre noissete). Plus almond powder and baked in rectangular pans.

I don't know why they had to change the design?

The little tea cakes were first made in a pastry shop near the Place de Bourse 75002 - i.e. the Wall Street of Paris.

I've never seen pans this shape, yet the recipe is in their book.

The financier can come in many flavors. Mariage Freres serves a mean Matcha cake (on the left) at tea time.

 Pierre Herme only makes big rectangular cakes. He says,

“Les cakes me replongent toujours dans des souvenirs d’enfance. D’apparence parfois simple, ils se révèlent à la découpe, moelleux, denses et souvent truffés de surprises savoureuses et croquantes.”

'Cake always takes me backto childhood memories. The appearence is simple, they reveal themselves in the cutting,soft , dense, often filled wiht surprises savory and crusty-crunchy'.

You can watch one of many financier demos at L'Atelier des Chefs.

The best possible info on the best financier in Paris is at Le Figaro naturalement and their list of Paris' 10 best. A la prochaine/next time I'll taste test and give you the lowdown PBers.

Yesterday I went looking for other financiers to taste but Bouchon has none and Financier Pastries was sold out except for a minis pack and I don't trust myself to eat just one.

I might as well just buy a pound of butter and start munching.

BONJOUR FINANCIERS!

Happy Birthday to me!

Well.. not anymore.. it's now Tuesday, but we'll ignore that fact (and the fact that I should be in bed but I can't sleep!). Just wanted to say thank-you for all the birthday wishes I got.. and show you the amazing birthday cake my mum made me! It is absolutely unreal...haha.


The outside.. 20 candles, count 'em! You may notice it is quite a tall cake..


And this would be why. Layers of rainbow cake.
My mum makes some pretty awesome cakes and when she asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I jokingly said I wanted a rainbow cake. Then yesterday we spent a good few hours in the kitchen making the layers and perfecting the food colouring.. I love it so much and almost didn't want to eat it. Cutting into it was the best thing ever.
I saw this idea forever ago on i am baker's blog where she made a green cake, and didn't think it was possible because it's a right pain in the bum to find white cake mix here, but me & my mum made a batch of pale cake mix, and managed to successfully add colours. We also found this recipe really useful, too.


A slice.. (: You will not need second-helpings. Trust me, haha.

For two layers of cake you'll need:
4oz of butter/marg
4oz of flour
4oz white caster sugar
2 large eggs
As much food colouring as you like!
2 small pans (I recommend small, thin pans, mine were probably like 20cm across)

Basically you just mix the cake like you normally would, then add the food colouring, making sure it's super vibrant, as it fades a tad when cooking, then cook the cake like you normally would. The outsides, where they cook, will go a strange colour - a sort of dull, greenish version of the colour you made.. but do not despair. Layer the cakes as you want, and I used some Betty Crocker icing inbetween each layer, and then smoothed around the top & bottom (I say *I*, my mum did this bit because I can't ice cakes for shit!). And then have the time of your life cutting into it. I am going to bedoing this for all my friends now, haha.
If you opposed to such things as E numbers, i am baker also does one coloured by natural substances like strawberries, blueberries and kiwis.. which I really want to try.
And I would highly recommend trying to find an American food shop (I'm visiting this one later this week haha) to get white cake mix because that is a, cheating, and b, a hell of a lot easier, haha.

That concludes my food-themed-blog post, haha. Hope you had a good day, too. (: