Financiers in US measures: 5 large egg whites, 2 cups + 1 tbsp powdered sugar, 1½ cups + 1 tbsp almond flour, ½ cup + 1 tbsp all-purpose flour and 1 stick + 5 tbsp butter browned to beurre noisette, with vanilla and lemon zest. Bake 5 minutes at 400 °F (200 °C), then 12 to 15 minutes at 350 °F (180 °C). Makes 18.
Financiers: the recipe in grams and US cups
| Ingredient | French recipe | US measure |
|---|---|---|
| blancs d'œufs (≈ 150 g)egg whites (US large) | 5 | 5 |
| sucre glacepowdered sugar | 230 g | 2 cups + 1 tbsp |
| poudre d'amandealmond flour (ground almonds) | 150 g | 1½ cups + 1 tbsp |
| farine (T45 ou T55)all-purpose flour | 70 g | ½ cup + 1 tbsp |
| beurre (pour le beurre noisette)butter, for the browned butter | 180 g | 1 stick + 5 tbsp |
| extrait de vanillevanilla extract | 1 c. à c. | 1 tsp |
| zeste d'un citron biozest of 1 unwaxed lemon | 1 citron (le zeste) | 1 lemon (zest) |
| beurre et farine pour les moulesbutter and flour for the moulds | un peu | a little |
Tap a row to tick it off. US measures use King Arthur Baking weights per cup; a scale gives the most exact result.
Method
- Butter the financier moulds and dust them with flour, tapping out whatever does not stick. Silicone moulds need nothing.
- Melt the butter over low heat and keep it on the heat until it turns light brown and smells nutty. That is beurre noisette. Take it off the heat and let it cool a little.
- Stir the flour, almond flour and powdered sugar together in a large bowl.
- Whisk in the egg whites, the vanilla and the lemon zest. The whites go in as they are – this is not a meringue, so they are not whipped.
- Whisk in the browned butter until the batter is smooth.
- Heat the oven to 200 °C (thermostat 6-7); on a US oven dial that is 400 °F.
- Fill the moulds and bake 5 minutes at 200 °C / 400 °F, then turn the oven down to 180 °C / 350 °F and bake another 12 to 15 minutes, until the edges are deep gold.
- Lift them onto a rack to cool completely. Financiers are best the day they are baked; in an airtight box they keep about 2 days.
Converted from the traditional French recipe; not yet kitchen-tested by Mangez Moi.
The French way: egg whites and browned butter
A financier is a small almond cake, baked as a flat gold bar, and it is built on two things an American recipe rarely asks for together: egg whites with no yolks at all, and butter cooked until it browns. Nothing is whipped. The dry ingredients are stirred together, the whites go in unbeaten, and the warm beurre noisette goes in last. That is the whole method, which is why financiers are a weeknight bake rather than a project.
The bar shape and the name come from the Paris financial district, where the rectangular mould is usually explained as a gold ingot. The practical reason the recipe exists at all is thrift: it is what a pastry kitchen does with the egg whites left over after a batch of custard or pastry cream.
Browning the butter is the step that makes it a financier instead of a plain almond cake. Keep it on low heat past melting, until the foam dies down, the milk solids at the bottom turn the colour of hazelnut skin and it smells nutty – then take it straight off the heat, because it goes from brown to burnt in seconds.
Our two French sources do not agree, and the gap is worth seeing
We publish Taste of France’s quantities, because that recipe is complete: it has the moulds, the oven and the timing. The second source, cooking-ez’s financier batter after Gaston Lenôtre, is a pastry-kitchen formula for a weight of batter and gives no oven at all. Set side by side against the same 100 g of ground almonds, the Lenôtre batter is distinctly richer and wetter: about a quarter more sugar, about a third more butter, a third more egg white and less flour.
| Recipe | Ground almonds | Sugar | Flour | Butter | Egg white | Makes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mangez Moi base (Taste of France, as published) | 150 g | 230 g | 70 g | 180 g | 5 whites (≈ 150 g) | 18 financiers |
| Per 100 g ground almonds | 100 g | 153 g | 47 g | 120 g | ≈ 100 g | – |
| cooking-ez / Gaston Lenôtre batter (as published) | 80 g | 150 g | 30 g | 125 g | 110 g | 500 g of batter |
| Per 100 g ground almonds | 100 g | 188 g | 38 g | 156 g | 138 g | – |
Neither figure is wrong; they are two points in a real range. Bake the Taste of France amounts for a lighter, more cake-like financier, and push the sugar and butter up towards the Lenôtre ratio for the denser, moister, more professional-tasting bar. We have not baked either, so we are not going to tell you which one you will prefer.
Five US large egg whites come to roughly 150 g, which is what the 5-white line is converted from; a US large white is about 30 g. If you keep whites in the freezer, weigh out 150 g rather than counting.
The moulds
A financier tin has shallow rectangular hollows, and the classic bar is about 8 × 4 cm (roughly 3 × 1½ in). The batter is thin enough to pour, so fill each hollow about three-quarters full. With no financier tin, a mini-muffin tray gives the same thickness and the same bake, just a round cake; butter and flour the tin first unless it is silicone. Taste of France’s quantities fill 18.
Easy variations
- Raspberry: press one berry into each bar before it goes in the oven – the classic French pairing with this batter.
- Pistachio: swap a third of the almond flour for ground pistachios.
- Plain: leave out the lemon zest and the vanilla for the bare almond-and-browned-butter version.
Tools used on this page: the recipe converter (grams to cups), French oven temperatures, the cake pan size converter and the French recipe abbreviations list.
Sources
- Taste of France, "Financiers" by Paola Westbeek, from her book Le Goûter: Afternoon Snacking the French Way (published 15 February 2021, last modified 26 February 2021) – 180 g butter, 70 g all-purpose flour, 150 g ground almonds, 230 g powdered sugar, 5 egg whites, 1 tsp vanilla extract and the zest of 1 organic lemon, for 18 financiers; preheat to 200 °C, bake 5 minutes, lower to 180 °C and bake 12-15 minutes
- cooking-ez.com, "Financier batter" by Jean-Hugues Belpois, based on a recipe by Gaston Lenôtre (last modified 14 April 2020) – for 500 g of batter: 110 g egg white, 150 g icing sugar, 80 g ground almonds, 30 g flour and 125 g beurre noisette. The page is the batter only and gives no oven temperature or baking time
The quantities are the traditional formula, cross-checked against the sources above; the method is written in our own words. US measures are computed from the King Arthur Baking ingredient weight chart by the same converter as our recipe converter.
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What is a financier?
A small French almond cake baked as a flat rectangular bar, made with egg whites, almond flour, powdered sugar and browned butter. It is named after the Paris financial district and its mould is usually explained as a gold ingot.
Why does a financier use only egg whites?
The recipe was a way of using up the whites left over when a pastry kitchen made custards and creams with the yolks. The whites also keep the crumb light, and they are not whipped – they go in as they are.
What is beurre noisette?
Butter cooked past melting until the milk solids brown and it smells of hazelnuts (noisette). It is what gives a financier its flavour; see the French baking glossary for the term.
How many cups is 150 g of almond flour?
About 1½ cups + 1 tbsp, at 96 g per cup. Almond flour is much lighter per cup than wheat flour, which is 120 g.
Can I make financiers without a financier tin?
Yes. A mini-muffin tray holds about the same amount of batter per cake and bakes in the same time; only the shape changes. Butter and flour the tin unless it is silicone.
How long do financiers keep?
They are at their best the day they are baked. In an airtight box they keep about 2 days.
Cite this page: Mangez Moi, “Financiers in Cups: French Almond Cake Recipe,” mangezmoi.com, updated October 11, 2026, https://mangezmoi.com/recipes/financiers/. Free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with credit and a link.