A Few Lovely Bites: Pear Financiers

After picking up some beautiful Bartlett pears at the farmers market, I looked for a pear recipe in Nicole Rucker's fruit-focused Dappled cookbook and found her "Pear Financiers." The recipe seemed like a great way to use the pears, as well as a good opportunity to use my new USA Pan brownie bite pan. I do own some silicone financier molds but I really dislike baking in silicone. 

This recipe comes together quickly and the batter doesn't require any resting time. You mix sugar with flour, almond flour, and salt; add egg whites and honey; slowly stream in cooled browned butter; and beat the batter until it's thick and glossy. I used a #40 scoop to portion out the dough into the cavities of the brownie pan (I had enough batter to make 33 financiers, so I bake two batches seriatim since I only have one 20-cavity pan ) and placed a cube of Bartlett pear in the middle of each financier. I sprinkled the tops of the cakes with sugar before baking.

These little cakes were delightful. They were soft and buttery, with a firm and flavorful outer crust, and a nice crunch from the sugar. The creamy pear inside was delicious. I think the small size of the cakes sets up the perfect ratio of pear to cake, and even though each cake was only a few bites, each bite was just lovely.

Recipe: "Pear Financiers" from Dappled by Nicole Rucker.