Financiers with hazelnut and orange recipe

Our financiers with hazelnut and orange are a sophisticated bake that look so impressive but are really easy to make. These little cakes are a French staple, you’ll find them in any good patisserie! We’ve adapted the classic almond based financier by using ground hazelnuts for the cake, and adding a touch of orange and a drizzle of dark chocolate to make them extra special. The fluted tins give our financiers a really interesting shape, but you can use a more classic rectangular financier tin, or even just the holes of a cupcake tray if you can’t get hold of any. Traditional financier recipes used browned butter, known in French as buerre noisette, but we’ve just used melted butter to simplify things a bit. If you want to use a browned butter instead, simply heat your butter in a pan over a medium-low heat until speckles of brown start to appear.

Ingredients

• 160g icing sugar
• 60g ground hazelnuts
• 150g egg whites (from about 4 eggs)
• 1tbsp honey
• 90g melted butter
• ½ tsp vanilla
• 70g plain flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• zest of an orange

To decorate

• 50g dark chocolate, melted
• 50g hazelnuts, toasted chopped

You will need:

• 6 non stick fluted oval tins

Method

1. Heat oven to 200C/Gas 6. Combine the icing sugar and ground hazelnuts then whisk in the egg whites. Stir in the honey, butter and vanilla, then the flour, baking powder and orange zest.
2. Divide the mixture between the cases and bake for 8 mins, until golden. Allow to cool slightly then remove from the tins, drizzle with melted chocolate and scatter with hazelnuts and a little orange zest.
3. Allow the chocolate to cool before serving. The financiers will keep for 2-3 days in an airtight tin.