Yay! It's warm! Summer is here and the ice cream machine is going to start cranking. Yay! So what about that, you ask? What this means for me is that I'm going to have an overstock of egg whites in the fridge. And these beauties, my dear friends, is the best thing you'll ever make with egg whites.



I'm referring to financiers, these bite-sized treats are made with beurre noisette (browned butter) mmmm!!, almond flour, and yes, those egg whites. The word financier is derived from its typical rectangular mould, which resembles a gold bar. Others say that these mini cakes became popular in the area surrounding Paris' financial district. Finance ... financier ... that's the theory.

Not to brag, but my girls just swooned over these soft, pillowy morsels. And to think about how much time I spent on it, it's really callous of me not to do this more often. Then again, to think about how much time I spent on it, they should be able to whip this up, and leave me to venture into other baking projects, right? Okay, how much time you ask? Honestly, the best 20 minutes of the day, not counting the time you clean up after of course ;)



10 minutes to brown butter, 10 minutes to prep, oops ... did I forget the 1 hour in the fridge? I was making lunch, it didn't count. Then it's just pouring into moulds and baking. Another 16 minutes of inactive waiting, during which I made coffee to accompany these baked beauties. Remove from oven, gawk, take pictures, sit down and enjoy!

Ingredients:
8 tbsp unsalted butter
100 g (1/2 cup) fine granulated sugar
100 g (1/2 cup) packed light brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
4 egg whites
60 g (1/2 cup) all purpose flour
100 g (1/2 cup) finely ground pistachios
100 g (1/2 cup) finely chopped pistachios

Directions:
1. In a heavy bottomed saucepan, heat the butter until browned. Set aside to cool.
2. Lightly butter 24 financier moulds or 2 mini muffin pans.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugars, salt, and the egg whites until smooth.
4. To the egg whites, add the flour, baking powder, ground almonds and finely ground pistachios
5. Stir in the cooled browned butter.
6. Refrigerate the batter for 1 hour.

7. Preheat the oven to 175C or 350F.
8. Pour the batter into the prepared moulds and sprinkle with the chopped pistachios.
9. Bake for 16-18 minutes until golden.
10. Cool in the mould a few minutes until warm to touch, before inverting them to a cooling rack.

Did you make your tea or coffee to go with it? Now's the time!

If you've enjoyed these as much as I did, try the raspberry financiers, they were pretty awesome too.