Brace yourself.  The apple recipes are coming.  I started lining up recipe ideas months ago in preparation for the apples that I knew would be coming in my farmshare.   I have not been receiving as many as I had expected, but enough to begin the great apple dessert festival of 2014.

I like financiers.  They are nutty and buttery.  They are easy to make gluten-free and they use up egg my extensive supply of egg whites.  I had never made a fruit financier before so I consulted Perfect Cakes by Nick Malgieri and learned that it is best to softened rather than melted butter so that the fruit won’t sink to the bottom of the very tender financier batter.

These tender, sweet cinnamon flavoured cakes topped with bits of crunchy nuts and tart apples are a very satisfying small dessert or sweet snack. 

CINNAMON FINANCIERS WITH APPLES AND WALNUTS (GLUTEN-FREE)

• 1 cup walnuts divided into 3/4 cup and 1/4 cup
• 3/4 cup buckwheat flour, plus extra to flour the muffin tins
• 3/4 cup sugar
• grated zest of 1 lemon
• 1 Tablespoon cinnamon
• 6 Tablespoons of softened unsalted butter (3/4 stick)
• 1 Tablespoon rum
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract or the seeds scraped from half of a vanilla bean
• 3 large egg whites (1/3 cup)
• 1 apple, cored, peeled (optional) and diced
• 2 Tablespoons Demerara or raw sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Butter 8 muffin tins and dust with some extra buckwheat flour.
2. Grind 3/4 cup walnuts in a spice grinder or food processor until it makes a fine flour (a few larger pieces are okay).  I find it is helpful to add a bit of the sugar from the recipe in with the nuts to keep them from forming nut butter instead of flour.  Chop the remaining 1/4 cup of walnuts and set aside.
3. Combine the ground walnuts, buckwheat flour, sugar, lemon zest,cinnamon in a large bowl.  Beat in the softened butter.
4. In a separate bowl, beat the rum, vanilla and egg whites until they form soft peaks.
5. Beat half of the egg whites into the butter mixture to lighten the batter.  Then beat in the rest.
6. Fill each muffin  tin with 1/4 cup batter.  Top each one with diced apple and a sprinkle of chopped walnuts and Demerara sugar.
7. Bake  for about 35 minutes.

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