Gold Ingots

or maybe we should call them gold squares, since that’s the shape of pan that I happened to have to bake these in. This week’s “heavenly cakes” selection is the gold ingots, also known as financiers classiques. I’ll admit to the same hesitation about this choice as many of the other bakers, since the peanut butter ingots weren’t my favourite, but they weren’t bad, so since this is on the quick and easy list, let’s bake!

Start by chasing your ingredients down from the increasingly annoying boxes they’re in all over the house, and measuring them out, then putting them back away. Sigh momentarily about the delay in your cabinet order, then move on, because you have to admit, it’s a more functional kitchen than it was before you tore the old stuff out, even without cabinets and counters! At least I didn’t need to make beurre noisette, because I have a stash in the freezer. See my peanut butter ingots post for how I make it in a large batch for convenience.

Next, mix the egg whites into the dry ingredients (sugar, ground almonds, best for blending/”wondra” flour, baking powder).

Add the vanilla, and mix again. Then, spend some time slowly drizzling in the beurre noisette and melted butter, taking it as slow as you can, so that you maintain a nice emulsion. I think my egg whites were a bit on the cool side of room temperature, because the batter seemed a lot thicker than it was for the peanut butter ingots, and I suspect that was due to some of the butterfat solidifying as it was mixed in.

The instructions say to pour the batter into the silicone financier pan (I used a Wilton brownie pan instead), but my batter wasn’t pourable, so I put it in a plastic bag and piped it in. It didn’t need any time in the fridge to solidify.

I didn’t have quite enough space for all of the batter in the pan, and I really should have filled these ones less full, because they did rise up out over the top of the pan, which made it difficult to get them out cleanly. Since the first batch stuck a bit, I overdid the baking spray on the second batch, and they unfortunately came out rather greasy.

It looks like I may have underbaked the first batch, since they sunk a bit in the middle, but the texture was fine. Jay really likes the crunchy top on these. I thought they had a good texture, though the flavour was a little underwhelming, and possibly a little too sweet. Did I just call something too sweet? That doesn’t sound like me at all!

Next week is free choice week, and I’ve already baked “my” choice. I took it to our friends’ cottage this past weekend, and it almost disappeared shortly after we arrived on Friday night. What didn’t disappear that night was gone first thing in the morning. Jay had all sorts of suggestions for different things I should do to ‘improve’ it, but they all basically boiled down to: you need to make this again and again and again. Find out what I made next week. 😉