CNY & The Gold Bars

With so many egg whites left from pineapple tarts making, the most appropriate bakes to use them all up during this festive season would be the Gold Bar, or better known as Financiers. At least, that was what i thought! :P

Of course, the fact that i bought the mold few months ago and have not had the chance to use it yet was another reason too!

No cracks!! The way it is supposed to be :)

When i first read the instructions in the recipe, i thought i read it wrongly. Then i re-read and realized i wasn’t wrong at all. The egg whites require no whisking to stiff peaks! When i first baked these babies years ago, the recipe from Carole Bloom instructed me specifically to whisk my whites to stiff peaks! And Keiko Ishida doesn’t.

How odd!

For the fun of it, i experimented the same recipe, 2 ways.

Matcha ones with stiff peaks whites and the rum ones with slight beating whites.

My verdict?

I like the rum ones!

BUT.

The thing is, i filled the batter 50% full for my matcha ones and when i realized later that they didn’t rise that much, i filled the rum ones to almost brim touching!

So, i can’t really judge, can i? ^.^

Most importantly, both tasted just as good… despite the difference, aesthetically.

p.s : amount of sugar has been adjusted according to my personal preference. :)

Recipe (adapted from Keiko Ishida’s Okashi)

Pastry flour        50g [i used plain flour]
Corn flour          5g
Baking powder  1/2 tsp
Egg White          130g
Castor Sugar      130g 80-90g
Ground almonds 50g
Salt                    pinch
Unsalted butter  130g
Green tea powder 10g

Method :
1. Preheat oven to 220C.
2. Sift flour,corn flour, baking powder and green tea powder together.
3. In a mixing bowl, lightly beat egg white with sugar and salt. Add ground almond, and flour mixture in stages.
4. In a heavy saucepan, heat butter until brown and fragrant. Once browned, transfer butter to a different bowl and cool down immediately using ice water.
5. Add browned butter gradually to flour batter and mix well to incorporate butter into flour batter.
6. Pour batter into molds and bake at 220C (i turned it down to 150C instead) for 15mins.

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As of the many years before this, CNY photo with the boys on the Day 1!

So why in the world were we squatting down instead of standing?

Well, heeee.. because the wind was too strong!!!

I couldn’t get the hair out of the way for a decent photo! :pPpppP