Five ingredients, ten minutes of work, and the butter does everything. Maison Bordier calls these pastries, but the method is a financier: browned butter, nut flour, and unbeaten egg whites, with no leavening and no creaming. Bordier Raspberry Butter takes the place of the plain butter, so the browned-butter note arrives with tart fruit behind it. Count on about twenty minutes from bowl to cooling rack.
At a glance
- Difficulty: Easy
- Serves: Bordier does not give a yield. Expect about a dozen standard financiers.
- Active time: 10 minutes
- Cook: 10 minutes at 200 C (400 F). Bordier's header says 15 minutes, so check at 10.
- Key ingredient: Bordier Raspberry Butter
Why this works
Bordier's raspberry butter dates to 2006 and came from a pastry chef friend, which explains why it behaves so well in a batter. It is a salted butter set against tangy raspberry, and the salt is the reason it does not read as a sweet novelty. In a financier, where sugar and nut flour dominate, that salt and acid are what keep the cake from going flat on the palate.
The technique itself is old and reliable. You melt the butter until it reaches the hazelnut stage, meaning the milk solids toast and the fat turns amber and smells of nuts. That toasting is a chemical change, not just heat, and it is where most of the flavor in a financier comes from. Then everything gets stirred together cold and unbeaten. There is no whipping, no folding, no air to protect. The cake rises only from steam and the expansion of the egg white, which is why the crumb comes out dense and moist rather than spongy.
Ingredients
Weigh these if you can. Nut flours in particular compress badly in a measuring cup, and the ratios here are tight.
| Ingredient | Metric | US |
|---|---|---|
| Hazelnut powder (hazelnut flour) | 50 g | About 1/2 cup |
| All-purpose flour | 50 g | Scant 1/2 cup |
| Sugar | 150 g | About 3/4 cup |
| Bordier Raspberry Butter | 75 g | 2.6 oz, about 5 tbsp |
| Egg whites | 4 | 4, about 1/2 cup |
Method
Step 1: Brown the butter
Melt the raspberry butter in a light-colored pan over medium heat and keep going past melting, until it reaches the hazelnut stage. The foam subsides, the solids at the bottom turn golden brown, and the whole pan smells toasted. Take it off the heat at that point and set it aside to cool.
Step 2: Mix the batter
Put the flour, sugar and hazelnut powder into a mixing bowl and stir them together. Add the cooled browned butter and the egg whites, which go in as they are, not beaten. Mix with a spatula or a whisk until the batter is smooth.
Step 3: Fill and bake
Fill your molds halfway. Bake at 200 C (400 F) for 10 minutes.
Tips from our kitchen
- Bordier's two cook times disagree, so trust the method. The recipe header says 15 minutes of cooking, but the written step says 10 minutes at 200 C (400 F). We bake for 10 and check: the edges should be brown and set, the center just springy. That is our call, not Bordier's, so watch the first tray.
- Watch the browning butter closely. A flavored butter carries fruit solids as well as milk solids, and they scorch a few seconds sooner than plain butter does. The moment the pan smells like toasted nuts, pour the butter into a cool bowl. If it smells sharp or acrid, start over. Burnt butter cannot be rescued and it will flavor the whole batch.
- Let the butter cool before it meets the egg whites. Bordier says cooled for a reason. Hot butter poured onto raw whites will set them into threads, and you will taste the grain in the finished cake. Warm to the touch is fine. Hot is not.
- Do not beat the whites. This is the step people get wrong, because a bowl of egg whites invites a whisk. Air here works against you: the batter is meant to be dense, and whipped whites collapse in the oven and leave a hollow.
- Halfway up the mold, no more. These rise more than they look like they will. Overfilled molds spill and the domed tops never cook through in ten minutes.
- Rest the batter if you have time. An hour in the refrigerator before baking gives the flour time to hydrate and produces a finer crumb and a better rise. This is our habit rather than Bordier's instruction, and the recipe works without it.
How to serve it
Serve them the day they are baked, still slightly warm, with coffee or a cup of black tea. They need nothing on top, though a few fresh raspberries alongside will echo the butter. If you want a second thing on the table from the same shelf of the refrigerator, our Madagascar vanilla butter brioche makes a good partner for a weekend breakfast, and the two butters are worth tasting side by side.
Where to buy Bordier Raspberry Butter in the US
The French Pantry ships Bordier butter across the United States in insulated overnight packaging, straight from the workshop in Brittany.
- Churned Seasonal Raspberry Butter by Bordier (4.4 oz): salted Breton butter worked with tart raspberry, made since 2006 for a pastry chef friend of the house.
To see the rest of the flavored range, browse the Maison Bordier collection.
Frequently asked questions
How much raspberry butter do I need for this recipe?
One batch takes 75 g. Our blocks are 4.4 oz (125 g), so a single block covers the recipe with 50 g left over for toast. If you want to bake two batches, buy two blocks.
Can I use a different Bordier butter?
Yes, and the method does not change. Madagascar Vanilla Butter makes a classic financier, and Buckwheat Butter is very good against the hazelnut flour. What you cannot do is change the quantities. Seventy-five grams of butter to 100 g of combined flours is what holds this batter together.
Can I use almond flour instead of hazelnut?
Almond flour is the standard financier nut and works in the same weight. The cake will be a little sweeter and less toasty. Hazelnut is the better match for browned butter, which is why Bordier chose it.
Does Bordier butter need to be refrigerated?
Yes. Bordier butter is a fresh, hand-churned product and ships cold. Keep it refrigerated until you are ready to melt it. For this recipe the butter goes straight into a pan, so there is no need to soften it first.
How should I store the butter and the finished cakes?
Wrap an opened block tightly and keep it in the coldest part of the refrigerator, away from strong-smelling foods, and use it within about two weeks. Unopened blocks freeze for up to three months. The baked cakes keep two days in an airtight tin, but they are noticeably better on day one.
What if I do not own financier molds?
A mini-muffin pan works, buttered and filled halfway. So does a standard muffin pan, though the larger cakes need a few extra minutes and lose some of the crust-to-crumb ratio that makes a financier worth eating.
Related reading
- Bordier Butter: What It Is, Why Chefs Love It, and How to Use It
- Madagascar Vanilla Butter Brioche
- Alain Milliat Jams
Recipe and photograph adapted from Maison Bordier, with thanks. The French Pantry is an authorized US retailer of Bordier butter.