2013 Resolutions: Thomas Keller's Chocolate Financiers

Nope these are not cupcakes
they are Financiers, baked in mini cupcakes mould. Such cute lil sinful bite-size financiers :))) Not too difficult to eat nor bake..but it did require some preparation and my very first attempt at making Brown Butter.

Thomas Keller the famous and top American chef in the states has plenty of books. JS bought almost all of them. It started with "Cooking under Pressure" a really technical book explaining the A-Z of sous-vide cooking. Yeah sous-vide is all about cooking ur food under the water bath of controlled temperature.

JS also attempted this amazing Buttermilk Fried Chicken from Thomas Keller's book
*read about it here*
since a few of his recipes were attempted by JS and proved to be GREAT,

Monkey finally picked up her book by Thomas Keller --> Bouchon. A gift from Munchy and Si Fu Lawrence.

It was just yesterday and Monkey just woke up, sprawled on the sofa, flipping pages from his book Bouchon...choosing wat to bake. :P And I found a really really simple recipe with ingredients that are accessible, tools and appliances that I have at home.

so the recipe started off with:
120gm granulated sugar
20gm of all purpose flour
60gm almond flour/meal
20gm unsweetened alkalized cocoa powder *use Valrhona Cocoa Powder, else just get a good quality ones*

if possible please sieve the above separately...and I was too lazy. This proved to be a lot of more work later....


to the Dry ingredients, add 100gm of Egg Whites
yeah too much of work becoz I had to mix them nicely and break up any lumps of flour/cocoa powder/almond meal.
-_-"
moral of the story, follow instruction!!!
Mix thoroughly the above.

Next, the Brown Butter.....it was my first time...When I saw it on the recipe, neither one of us know wat the heck is Brown Butter....Thankfully the book Bouchon has every explanation in different section on methodology, ingredients, tools, technique and so on....

Basically it literally means wat it is...brown the butter
but it was as simple as it is...bcoz u don't want to burn them

So to brown the butter, just drop the entire chunk of butter onto ur sauce pan over medium fire and let it melt. U will need to whisk it all the time to prevent the base from sticking/burning. There will be a lot of bubble as it evaporates. Keep on stirring until the bubble has subsided and u need to check the color of the butter with a spoon. Once it has reached the "Caramel" color with a toffee nose....it's done!!!

Immediately transfer it over to the muslin cloth/sieve to remove any sediments.

and this is wat u got at the end.....clear caramel toffee nose of brown butter....
Thomas Keller used a lot of these in his cooking and baking for its rich aroma.

So gather about 100gm of Brown Butter and add 30gm of chopped 70% chocolate.
The recipe requires 20gm of 70% Valrhona chocolate and 10gm of 100% Pure chocolate....since I don't have 100% really bitter really pure chocolate....I just make it up to 30gm of 70%

Heat up lightly the Brown Butter with the chopped chocolate. Chopped ones are easier to melt and faster but I was lucky coz my Valrhona came in pallet form. Each pallet is about 3g.

Once the chocolate has melted in the Brown Butter, add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. It will become like the above.

Spray ur mini cupcakes tin with non-stick spray. I used butter spray. You can obtain this from the vegetable oil section in any supermarket. Transfer these mixture into the pipping bag and fill each mould with the mixture until it's slightly under the rim. My mini cupcakes tray can accommodate about 12.

Ur oven must be heated by now. Rule no. 1 in baking is to reheat your oven even before you start anything. The temperature used in this recipe is 175*C Bake each tray individually for 12 minutes or until your skewer comes out clean.

and Ta-DA!!!!
enjoy them on the same day...but I like them warm :)))
perfect as petit four and a cup of espresso
Life is good :))))))))

I know....I should have attempted the original rectangular Butter Financier instead of this modern chocolate version but I just didn't have the mold. Gotta get them soon :))))

If you wanna view more beautiful pics from Thomas Keller's bakery, log on here:
www.bouchonbakery.com