A Small Treat with Summer Berries

I've made Financiers before, but it's been a while. Not sure why I've waited because these are delightful little treats that showcase summer berries and fruit. They are perfect with tea or coffee. They were named after the financial men of Paris (I believe). They are just the right amount of pastry and very rich! This recipe by David Lebovitz is a good one, as his recipes usually are.

One of the wonderful thing about these is that they use browned butter. It's not difficult to make browned butter, but you do have to keep an eye on the pan and focus on how browned the milk solids are getting. Stop when you get a whiff of toasted nuts from the pan, but before the solids get dark brown.

When I first made this I used slivered blanched almonds and ground them in the food processor. This time all I had to do was weigh some almond flour from Costco. I still used the food processor to mix the sugars and the almond flour, but it was like three short pulses!

You can use any kind of fruit in these, but I like fresh berries, especially blackberries. I made these on July 17th and in honor of Max. When he was a little guy he used to go with Sweetie in the morning to walk our dog Shogun around the block. When it was blackberry season (about now) he would come home with his hands stained with blackberry juice...and there were usually similar stains around his mouth since the joy wasn't just picking the berries, but eating them right away. 

For this batch I used blackberries in some, halved tiny strawberries in others, and a few had pieces of nectarines. The ones in the muffin cups also got a sprinkle of sliced almonds. I made five in the muffin cups and a dozen in a cast iron mold I have. They become fairy cakes and are quite cute, plus a better size for snacking. The photo at the top of the post shows one of the small ones that has nectarine and blackberry.

Summer Fruit Financiers with Almond Flour
makes about 12 small cakes in muffin cups
Based on a recipe in Ripe for Dessert by David Lebovitz


7 tablespoons unsalted butter
157 grams almond flour (about 1 1/2 cups)
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup powdered sugar
5 tablespoons flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 large egg whites
½ teaspoon almond extract
one 6-oz basket blackberries

Position the oven rack in the center of the oven and pre-hear to 400 degrees F. Butter a 12 cup muffin tin.

In a skillet, heat the butter until it begins to sizzle. Continue to cook over low heat until the edges begin to darken and the butter gives off a nutty aroma. Remove from the heat. (The butter may sputter and splatter while cooking. If you want, place an overturned colander over the pan to protect yourself.)

In a food processor, grind the almonds with the granulated and powdered sugars. When fine, add the flour and the salt and pulse to mix. While the processor is running, gradually pour in the egg whites and add the almond extract. Stop the machine, and add the warm butter, pulsing as you pour until the batter is just mixed.

Divide the batter evenly among the buttered muffin cups Batter will come up about 1/3 of the way. Poke 3 or 4 blackberries into each cake.

Bake for 18 minutes, until puffy and deep golden brown. Watch so they don’t burn. Let stand a few minutes, then remove them from the pan and cool on a rack. Store cooled cakes in an airtight container for up to a week.

Variations: Substitute peach, nectarine, or plum slices for the blackberries, peeling first if desired. Cut the fruit into ½ inch slices or chunks and lay them over the top of each little cake or push into the batter if a chunk, like with berries, before baking. You can also sprinkle the top of each cake with untoasted sliced almonds before baking.

Warm Raspberries

Being in the midst of berry season is a great place to be. Prices at the stores are reasonable, the blackberries in the lower field and by the apple tree are prolific this year due to all the spring rains, and Costco recently had 6 half pints of beautiful ripe red raspberries for a very low amount of dough so I have had more than enough raspberries to have fun with than ever!

I enjoy most berries both fresh and cooked but I have preferences, too. Strawberries taste best to me when they are fresh and untouched, although I enjoy them chilled, too. Blackberries are great either cooked or uncooked, especially combined with other fruits. Blueberries seem to expand their flavor when warmed…think blueberry muffin and you’ll know what I mean. And then there are warm raspberries, Mmmmmm!

Raspberries are most enjoyable (to my way of thinking) cooked. The heat releases that wonderful fragrance and intensifies their sweet, unforgettable flavor.

To celebrate my windfall of raspberries I got my warm raspberry fix. Just after July 4th weekend I baked some in a delightful fresh coffee cake with a crunchy streusel topping. The unbeatable Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: from my home to yours has a great recipe for Blueberry Crumb Cake and the same recipe can be played with using…tada!...raspberries…and fresh peach chunks for that Melba flavor combo.

I used orange zest to rub with the sugar and put some of the crumb topping inside the cake as well as on top, but otherwise it is as written in the book. If you haven't bought this wonderful book, or gotten it out of the library, this might be the time.

What you get is a rich buttermilk cake, lightly touched with orange. The raspberries and ripe and juicy peeled peach chunks are folded into the cake batter so every bite has some fruit and some of the nutty, crunchy sweet topping.

Served warm from the oven, this cake fulfils every warm raspberry desire…for now.

Stuffed with Summer Berries

Sweetie and I enjoyed a meal a few days ago at a restaurant that was once in Santa Rosa and is now in a roadhouse on the highway on the way to Bodega Bay. It's called Saint Rose, it's small (although bigger than Cafe Saint Rose was in Santa Rosa), and the food is simple.

Of course the most difficult thing to do is to create something so simple that it is sublime. They do that with seasonal foods, some from their own garden. The white corn soup was the essence of summer. The heirloom tomato salad was enhanced with just the right amount of balsamic vinegar and fruity olive oil. The salmon was adorned with perfect roasted cherry tomatoes. The best dish however was the summer berry pudding.

I've read recipes for summer pudding over the years but never got around to making any. It's pretty simple...bread slices line a mold, the center is stuffed with berries and more bread and the mold is topped off with more bread. In some variations all of the berries are cooked with water and sugar, in some the berries are uncooked and a current jelly or apple jelly syrup holds them together. In some the bread is buttered and in some it's not.

After enjoying Saint Rose's version, I was inspired to try my hand at making a summer pudding. Since I only needed enough for three, I used a fairly narrow but deep bowl with straight sides as a mold. I lined it with the bread after removing the crusts, making sure to tightly fit the bread together across the bottom and up the sides.

In a pot I put a cup of fresh strawberries in 1/4 inch dice, and a cup of ripe blackberries fresh off the bushes down by the old garden. I added 1/4 cup water and 2 tablespoons sugar and let it simmer for 10 minutes and then cool a bit. If the berries weren't so ripe and sweet, I would have added more sugar. As I found out when we finally ate it, the Saint Rose version used more sugar. Both are good, so go for sugar to your taste.

Once the mixture had cooled a bit, I added another cup of sliced strawberries and another cup of blackberries, plus a cup of organic blueberries from a farm stand near Ross Station Road. They were plump and bursting with flavor. The Saint Rose version seemed to have used only blueberries and blackberries, both cooked a bit, but I wanted the flavors of all three. Having some of the berries uncooked gave it a sparkling flavor and a little more bite to the texture. Again, both were good, so you could easily cook all the berries, just keep the cooking time short.

Most of the berry mixture was spooned into the bread lined mold. I added another layer of bread about half way through, more of the berry mixture, then topped it off with a layer of bread.

The extra berry mixture went into a pint canning jar to be used for garnish.

The mold went into the 'fridge for a couple of hours, then I put a plate over the top and weighed it down with a large can of enchilada sauce (it was the largest can I had in the pantry) and put it back in the fridge overnight.

When it was time to serve, I slid a knife around the edge of the bowl, and turned the berry pudding out on a plate. There were a few places where the juices hadn't soaked all the way through. Those got a little dribble of the reserved extra berry mixture. Then I put some more berry mixture around the edge of the pudding to serve. It really was pretty with bread tinted a reddish purple and all the red and blue and purple colors of the berry mixture.

The pudding cut easily and held together pretty well. More of the sauce garnished the serving. A spoonful of whipped cream would have been the perfect addition if I'd had any.

It made a lovely dessert with the essence of summer berries. The bread had soaked up the juices and turned pudding like. The berries themselves were just sweet enough, but with a tang of tartness, perfect on a warm summer evening.

Stuffed with Berries Summer Pudding

about 1/2 loaf of fine textured bread, sliced, crusts removed

2 cups fresh, ripe strawberries, divided

2 cups fresh, ripe blackberries, divided

1 cup fresh, ripe blueberries

(Any combination of berries is fine - a larger amount would be needed if you are using a 9 or 10 inch spring form pan - probably 6 or 7 cups total)

1/4 cup water

2 tablespoon to 1/2 cup sugar...to taste

Whipped cream for garnish, if desired

Line the bottom and sides of a mold with tightly fitted pieces of the bread slices. Set aside.

In a medium saucepan, stir together 1 cup strawberries, hulled and cut in 1/4 inch dice, and 1 cup blackberries, the water and the sugar. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer 10 minutes to soften fruit and create a syrup. Remove from heat and allow to cool. (You could also simmer all of the fruit for the pudding if you prefer, let cool and then proceed to fill the mold.) Add the uncooked 1 cup strawberries, hulled and sliced, the uncooked 1 cup blackberries and the uncooked 1 cup blueberries. Stir to combine.

Spoon one half the berry mixture into the prepared mold. Add another layer of bread, fitted to cover the berries. Spoon enough of the rest of the berry mixture to fill the mold, leaving enough space at the top for the last layer of bread. Fit that last layer of bread to completely cover the berry mixture. Place the mold in the refrigerator for two hours. Reserve any extra berry mixture for when you serve the pudding.

After two hours, remove the mold from the refrigerator. Place a plate that fits the top of the mold over the bread layer and weight it down with a heavy canned good. Return to the refrigerator and leave overnight.

To serve, run a knife around the sides of the mold to loosen the pudding. Place a serving plate over the mold and invert. If there are any spots where the juices didn't soak through the bread, spoon a little of the syrup of the reserved berry mixture over the spots.

Garnish with the extra berry mixture and whipped cream. Serve cold.