Welcome to Day 1 of
The Twelve Days of Holiday Treats!
Once again, this year, from December 1st-12th I’ll post a new holiday treat recipe every day – inspiration for your holiday entertaining!
The recipes I’m sharing are small-er batch (perfect for this year when many of us will still be attending/ hosting smaller gatherings) – each recipe makes 1-dozen or a few more smaller-sized treats) that are simple to prepare and that use everyday ingredients and equipment so hopefully you’ll be able to whip up any of these on a whim. Check out the treats from 2019 and 2020 at the bottom of this post too for more inspiration!
Today’s treat is one that combines the flavours of the season (spéculoos) with a favourite French treat – financiers! If you read this blog often, you’ll know how much I LOVE financiers (see: all these posts) and if you have French Food for Everyone: le goûter (after school snacks), you’ll have the recipe for spéculoos, those wonderful cookies you get at cafés with hot drinks all over France (and other European countries). I came up with this recipe when researching recipes for pain d’épices (a sort of gingerbread-y cake) – which I was thinking of sharing but then I settled on these…
Because I’m trying to be more inclusive in my baking and sharing, I made these a couple of ways, including using oat flour, and this ended up being the version we loved the most. I was worried that the oat flour would make them a little dense but it’s such a small quantity that you couldn’t even tell. They developed the signature “hump” that financiers made in muffin tins typically do along with the crispy exteriors.
Wait, you don’t usually make financiers in muffin tins?
Well no, Actually, financiers or a version of them were originally baked in an oval shape by nuns of the Order of the Visitation and called visitandines. A clever baker in Paris working near the financial district in the 19th century, one Monsieur Lasne, saw how they could be easily eaten on the go, and thought this would appeal to his busy banker clientele. He shaped the cakes like gold bars and named them financiers as a nod to both his clientele and the surrounding district. They now come in various shapes, including rectangles and ovals. I always use a mini muffin pan because I am a big fan of using what you have on hand and mini muffin pans are easy to find and many people have them in the kitchen already. Mini muffin tins work well to give you a good crunchy exterior/ fluffy interior ratio.
Speculoos financiers
All the flavour of speculoos cookies in a tea cake!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup (57 g/ 4 tablespoons/ 1/2 stick) salted butter
- 2 large egg whites
- 1/4 cup (50 g) granulated sugar
- 3 tablespoons (28g) oat flour
- 1/4 cup (25g) ground almonds (almond meal)
- 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon powder
- 1/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- pinch ground cloves
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 400˚F. If you are using reliably non-stick muffin tins you may not need to but otherwise generously butter a 12-cavity mini muffin tin.
- Melt the butter (either in a small pot on the stovetop over medium heat or in the microwave for about 1 minutes). Set aside to cool.
- In a large bowl, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks with electric beaters (approx. 2 minutes on high).
- Whisk the sugar, flour, ground almonds and spiced. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and use a rubber spatula to gently fold until the dry ingredients are just combined.
- Add the cooled, melted butter to the batter and use a rubber spatula to gentlymix until the butter is completely incorporated.
- Divide the batter between the muffin tins. You can do this with a 1 1/2
tablespoon cookie scoop or a small teaspoon. You’ll want to fill each mold so it’s nearly full. - Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the centre is slightly puffed and the edges are golden and slightly crispy and coming away from the pan. There may be cracks in the tops.
- Remove from the muffin pans immediately and allow to cool on wire cooling racks.
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Aren’t they gorgeous?
And so tasty too. BONUS? They make your house smell like the holidays!
Warning – you might need to make a double (triple) batch!!
Baking up a storm? Check out Nuts.com for all your baking and cooking needs!
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Check out the rest of 2021’s 12 Days of Holiday Treats:
Day 1: Speculoos financiers
Day 2: Chocolate Dipped Orange Sugar Cookies
Day 3: Madeleines à la Clémentine
Day 4: Chocolate Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies
Day 5: Sunbutter and Jam Chocolate Cups
Day 6: Hot Chocolate and Marshmallow Cookies
Day 7: Linzer Cookies
Day 8: Chocolate-Hazelnut Sandwich Cookies
Day 9: Choc-Mint Thumbprint Cookies
Day 10: Pailles (Puff Pastry and Jam Cookies)
Day 11: Strawberry Santa Hats
Day 12: Mulled Wine Jam
Check out 2020’s 12 Days of Holiday Treats:
Day 1: Rice Krispie Wreaths
Day 2: Cranberry Cheesecake Bars
Day 3: Peppermint Bark
Day 4: Orangettes
Day 5: Rocky Road Chocolate Crackle Slice
Day 6: Candy Cane Sugar Cookies
Day 7: Orange Pim’s
Day 8: Mendiants
Day 9: Chewy Chocolate Mint Crackle Cookies
Day 10: Apricot, Coconut and Cranberry “truffles”
Day 11: Chocolate, Cherry and Almond Brownies
Day 12: Peppermint Hot Chocolate
Check out 2019’s 12 Days of Holiday Cookies:
Day 1: Easy Three Ingredient Shortbread
Day 2: Jam Drops
Day 3: Chocolate Caramel Slice
Day 4: Melting Moments
Day 5: White Christmas
Day 6: Langues de Chat
Day 7: Chocolate Coconut Slice
Day 8: Cornflake Biscuits
Day 9: Rocky Road
Day 10: Honey Joys
Day 11: Rum Ball Truffles
Day 12: Giant Florentine Cookie (to share)
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Not knowing my way around a kitchen…. are these very sweet, mildly so or what?
I can see the sugar in the ingredients but it’s hard to know how sweet they’re likely to be. They do look wonderful.
They are sweet but not overly so. They taste like speculoos in cake form!