Chocolate Tiger Financiers

When I was a tourist in Paris, I did tourist things—by the way, to this day I like to do them when guests come to us. Climb the Eiffel, sail on the Seine and marvel as if it were the first time, sit in the Luxembourg Gardens in front of the pools and tell myself how polite the French kids are as they sail boats and more and more. When I was a tourist in Paris, one of the things I did was take daily courses of desserts and pastries.

In one of these courses we cooked various kinds of cookies like Madeleine, Financier and the star – the Chocolate Tiger. I remember that until then I had never seen this little cunning cake, but since then I have not stopped wanting it. Its texture is really a Financier texture, but it is studded with chocolate chips that give it a tiger look. The center is usually filled with chocolate ganache, but you can also go wild with praliné, halva or nutella.

One of the secrets of the recipe is the Brown Butter, of course in French it sounds better— Beurre Noisette. This is a butter that is melted and heated until browned. The color of the butter turns brown and it tastes like nuts, as if we had squeezed the fat from the hazelnuts. This butter is one of the charms of French cuisine and is very important to the recipe.

Chocolate Tiger Financiers
8-9 serves, donuts silicone mold (6 or 8 cavity each)

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Ingredients

For the Financiers:

80 g  butter 
60 g almond meal
120 g confectioner’s sugar
55 g flour
2 g baking powder
pinch of salt
150 g egg whites
125 g dark chocolate. chopped

For the Chocolate ganache filling:

100 g dark chocolate, chopped
100 g heavy whipping cream

For the filling you can use Praliné paste instead of chocolate ganache (or half chocolate, half praline).

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Preparation

1. Preheat the oven to 175 degrees Celsius.

2. In a small saucepan, melt butter over low heat. After the butter has melted continue to heat it until it reaches an amber brown color. Remove from heat and strain. Cool (not in the refrigerator) until it reaches room temperature.

3. In a medium bowl combine almond meal, confectioner’s sugar, flour, baking powder and salt.

4. Add the egg whites, you can use a mixer but no whipping is needed, only mix until the ingredients come together.

5. Slowly add Brown Butter, until the batter becomes smooth.

6. Add the chopped chocolate, mix.

7. Transfer the batter into a piping bag or a plastic bag, with one of the edges snipped off. Fill the mold almost to the top

8. Bake for 15 minutes, until nicely browned, and let cool for 15 minutes before removing the financiers from the mold.

9. Ganache: Heat the cream until simmering. Pour the hot cream over the chocolate, wait a few seconds, then stir with a spatula to make a smooth ganache. Stir very carefully without lifting the spatula from the bottom of the bowl in order to avoid incorporating air bubbles. Wait about 30 mintutes before using (don’t use the ganache if it’s too hot).

10. Fill the Chocolate Tiger with chocolate ganache or with Praliné paste, you can use a piping bag or a teaspoon.

Bon Appetit
Sharon