Afternoon Mini Financier Cakes with Coffee

I have an event coming up where the client wants huge silver bowls filled with the finest Almonds I can find, so i have been sent samples from all over the world and thus have rather a lot of almonds in my kitchen at the moment. So I decided to make good use of them and when a girlfriend popped over for coffee I thought they would be the perfect accompanying nibble. 


These lovely little cakes are supposed to resemble gold bars, thus the name, but you can make them in any shape you want and i wanted them to be round and mini!

120g unsalted butter
1 tbsp honey
45g plain flour
125g Icing Sugar
120g ground almonds
1/2 tsp almond extract
pinch of salt
3 egg whites, lightly whisked
20g flaked almonds

Heat the oven to 220C. Warm the butter in a pan on a medium heat. Use a little of the melted butter to grease the baking tin. I used a 24-hole mini muffin tin but you can use a normal bun tin, square or round. Pop the tin in the fridge to chill. 

Continue to heat the rest of the butter until the milk solids go light brown and the liquid is a golden colour. Strain the liquid into a bowl without the brown solids, then whisk in the honey and set aside. 

Sieve the flour and sugar into a mixing bowl and mix in the ground almonds, extract and salt. Stir in the egg whites then pour in the browned butter and mix until smooth.

Evenly divide the mixture between the tins and place in the oven for 5 minutes. Take out a sprinkle on the flaked almonds, pop back in the over for a further 8 minutes. Cool for a few minutes then pop on wire rack to cool completely. 

Serve with a pop of coffee or tea.