Recipe #6: Roasted Pumpkin Seed Butter Financiers with Bing Sweet Cherries

I've recently become obsessed with different types of flour. At the WholeFoods by our yoga studio, I get mesmerized by the selection. Brown rice, almond, chestnut, tapioca, chickpea, quinoa, buckwheat, peanut, hazelnut...you name it! Essentially, take a bunch of cereal grains, seeds or roots, process it into a powder in a food processor and you've got flour! Financiers are almond flour based teacakes, made lighter by the use of egg whites. I recently saw a recipe on one of my favorite pastry blogs (Cannelle et Vanille) for a roasted pumpkin seed butter financier. Say what?! I had never used almond flour before and was excited to make my own nut-based butter. This recipe is adapted from her's although I replaced quinoa flour with whole wheat pastry flour. I love the earthy, slightly wheat taste it gives to the financiers and it also provides a more tender texture than regular whole wheat flour. I had been debating on what fruit to use as the topper, and in the end decided to go with cherries like I had seen on CetV. Olin happened to have picked up some beautiful bing cherries over the weekend and I loved the presentation of the cherry stalk sticking out from the middle of the cake. At the last minute though, I halved some of the cherries and stuck them skin-down into the batter. In terms of taste, these were my favorite: the sweetness of the cherries balanced really well with the roasted nutty flavors of the financier.

Pumpkin Seed Butter Financiers with Bing Sweet Cherries

Makes about 12 small cakes

4 egg whites
115 grams sugar
80 grams almond flour
30 grams whole wheat pastry flour
pinch of salt
50 grams pumpkin seeds, toasted
15 grams olive oil
12 bing cherries

Toast the pumpkin seeds with a little olive oil until crisp and golden. When cool, grind them to a fine powder in a food processor. Add the olive oil while processor is running to form a paste. Set aside.

Whisk together the egg whites and sugar. Add the almond and whole wheat pastry flours and the salt. Whisk to incorporate. Add the pumpkin seed butter.

Pipe the batter into 12 baking cups (about halfway full) and bake at 350F for about 10 minutes.
Place a cherry (or the two halves of a sliced cherry) on top of each financier and bake for another 15-18 minutes until lightly golden on top.