Pistachio financiers

Learn how to make pistachio financiers with this easy recipe! These little pistachio cakes are made with ground pistachios and brown butter. This recipe includes a gluten-free option.

You have to try these pistachio financiers. Traditionally, financiers are little nut-based cakes, made with ground almonds, sugar, brown butter, and egg whites, and baked in small rectangular moulds that resemble bars of gold.

They are actually very simple to make, with a short list of ingredients, and the mixing method is pretty forgiving. These cakes are sweet, moist, and slightly chewy, and I bet you can't eat just one. Spoiler alert: I can easily eat 6 in the span of minutes. They are THAT good!

Jump to:

• What you need to make pistachio financiers
• Substitutions
• Variations
• Improving the colour
• Special equipment and pan prep
• Step-by-step to make French tea cakes at home
• Storage
• Other financier recipes to try
• Frequently asked questions
• 📖 Recipe

What you need to make pistachio financiers

• pistachios—I bake these with shelled unsalted pistachios from Nuts.com. For the chopped green pistachio garnish, I used some young slivered green pistachios from a store that sells Mediterranean food imports.
• butter—I baked this recipe with unsalted butter and then added my own salt to the batter for these cakes. If you use salted butter, you might want to skip the salt to avoid these pistachio cakes being too salty!
• flour—I used bleached all-purpose flour, but unbleached will also work fine. You can also use alternative flour, like chestnut flour and white rice flour. Even millet or sorghum should work well here.
• sugar—pistachio is a delicate flavour so I baked these with granulated sugar, though brown sugar can work here, but the flavour and colour will overpower the nuts.
• salt—I use Diamond Crystal fine kosher salt, which is less salty. If you are using table salt, you may halve the amount in the recipe
• egg whites—I bake with large eggs, so each egg white weighs 30 grams (approximately) and it takes about 4 eggs to get to the weight needed (or darn close!). If you bake with smaller eggs, you will need to crack open more eggs to get to the weight of egg whites to make this recipe

See recipe card for quantities.

Substitutions

• Almond—replace the ground pistachio with ground almond or almond flour for an almond version. You can also enhance the almond flavour with a few drops of almond extract (remember it's potent and a little goes a long way!)
• Coconut—replace the ground pistachio with the same weight of coconut. You will have to grind it in a food processor to avoid textural issues.
• Egg whites—you can either crack eggs and separate the whites to use in this recipe or use boxed pasteurized egg whites, which will work great in this recipe.

Variations

• Gluten-free—I learned from the Tartine Gourmande cookbook that you can make gluten-free financiers, replacing the all-purpose flour with gluten-free flour, such as white rice flour. I have tested it and it works quite well! These chestnut financiers are another example of using an alternative gluten-free flour that works perfectly (in that case, it was chestnut flour).

Improving the colour

If you want to make greener pistachio financiers, try to peel the pistachios first to remove the dark black or brown papery skin that covers the individual nuts. Also make sure to buy greener pistachios, which are picked younger when they are a deep, dark green colour. As pistachios age, the green fades to a golden yellow.

Special equipment and pan prep

Many pastry chefs prefer to bake financiers in silicone pans to guarantee that they don't stick. They brush the moulds with a little softened butter to ensure the little cakes don't stick. Unmoulding from silicone bakeware is easy because silicone is naturally quite non-stick and it's also pliable so that you can easily push the cakes out of the pan.

Financiers can also be baked in any metal muffin pan or mini muffin pan. I bake these in a non-stick mini muffin pan that makes 24 mini financiers. Again, if the non-stick coating is not compromised or dulled, you should be able to get away with simply buttering the wells of the pan, but greasing and flouring will ensure that the cakes don't stick.

Alternatively, you can bake this recipe in a regular cake pan to create one larger cake that you can slice. The batter should fit an 8x8-inch square pan or even a 9-inch round pan.

Step-by-step to make French tea cakes at home

Financier cakes might be the easiest cake you make. The longest part of the process is chilling the batter before baking.

Most desserts with egg whites would have you make a meringue or whip the egg whites to stiff peak, then fold them into the dry mixture. Whipping the egg whites incorporates air and water, which is why egg whites are considered a leavening agent. But with financiers, all you have to do is whip the whites until they are frothy. It's faster and easier, and you still end up with a spongy, light texture!

Storage

Financiers have the best texture a few hours after they are baked: these French tea cakes are slightly chewy and crunchy on the outside on the day they are baked and have a soft crumb inside. Store them in an airtight container or wrapped tightly in foil. The edges will lose their crunchy texture but will stay chewy for a day or two. The flavour improves with time.

You can also freeze them. Unwrap and defrost overnight in the refrigerator to avoid any condensation or moisture build-up on the surface of the cakes.

Other financier recipes to try

Financiers are very versatile and are a great canvas for playing with flavours and also for baking with fresh fruit:

• incorporate shredded coconut and golden yellow kiwis to make these kiwi coconut financiers  
• top them with summer berries like blueberries and raspberries to make berry financiers
• make them with chestnut flour, yielding a sweet cake that is the perfect contrast for tart cranberries, like in these gluten-free cranberry chestnut financiers
• incorporate tahini into the batter and kumquats, which are like miniature oranges to make sesame kumquat financiers 

Frequently asked questions

📖 Recipe