PISTACHIO AND GRAPEFRUIT FINANCIERS

I don’t often do fancy bakes, but if I want fancy, I go financier fancy. Financiers are named for their resemblance to gold bars and in my opinion they are so good they could be used for currency. The cake delights with its contrasts: rich and robust earthiness through the beurre noisette (brown butter) and ground nuts balanced perfectly with the delicacy of a surprisingly light structure and zingy grapefruit. Burning butter for the beurre noisette is an easy technique to bring a richer buttery flavour.

Heating the butter separates the butterfat from the milk solids and these solids begin to brown – but once you get an amber golden colour you need to remove from the heat. You don’t need to put pink colouring in the icing, but I think it makes these cakes look so pretty and financiers deserve a glow-up.

Prep time: 10 minutes, plus 1 hour chilling

Cooking time: 25 minutes

Makes six

INGREDIENTS

60g unsalted butter, plus extra

for greasing

1 pink grapefruit (zest)

100g icing sugar 30g plain (all-purpose) flour,

plus extra for dusting 20g wholemeal plain (wholewheat all-purpose) flour

½ tsp baking powder 40g unsalted pistachio nuts,

whizzed to the texture of ground almonds (100g once shelled is just over 40g)

3 large egg whites

2 tsp orange blossom water

For the topping:

85g icing sugar 15ml grapefruit juice (from the grapefruit mentioned earlier) 10g liquid glucose Pink food colouring Flaked (slivered) pistachios, to decorate

METHOD

► Brown the butter by placing it in a small saucepan on a medium heat until it foams (about five minutes). Allow it to cook until golden brown, then remove from the heat and leave until cool, but not set.

► Zest the grapefruit and add this to a mixing bowl with the icing sugar, flours, baking powder and ground pistachios. Toss all these together, then beat in the egg whites and orange blossom water. Stir through the browned butter then cover and chill for one hour.

► Preheat the oven to 190C/170C Fan/Gas 5. Grease your tin with butter and dust with flour. Fill the tin three-quarters full with the batter, then bake for 20 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean. Leave inthe tin for five minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

► Beat the icing sugar, grapefruit juice and liquid glucose with enough pink food colouring to give it a blush. Pour half over the

financiers, allow to set, then pour over the rest and sprinkle with the pistachios.

► Stored in an airtight container, these cakes keep nicely up to three days.