I woke up early this morning and I padded quietly downstairs, just barely avoiding tripping over the tangle of three little dogs rushing downstairs. They scrambled over one another to get outside when I let them out into the backyard and I shut the door behind them. There was only a few minutes before they would be back at the door and like every morning I hastened back into the kitchen and quickly set the coffee maker to grind and brew that precious first cup of the day. I reached for my library book but before I could open it the dogs wanted back in.
Once they were inside, they dashed about with sort of frantic energy only dogs and small toddlers have first thing in the morning and I returned to my library book, Ripe For Dessert by David Lebovitz. The other day, when I leafed through it, a recipe had caught my eye and I had remembered to pick up blackberries the night before at the grocery store. Berries out of season aren't a preference of mine but for some inexplicable reason I wanted to bake Blackberry Financiers immediately and I didn't have the patience to wait the months and months that it would take for the berries to be in season again.
Ground almonds, sugar, egg whites, and browned butter are the key components of this recipe; the miniscule amount of flour are so little that I found myself checking the recipe thrice to be sure I had read the amount correctly. Butter was set to melt on top of the stove and I poured the almonds into my food processor and tipped in the sugars, flour, and salt. The grind of the food processor roared through the still house and I winced but only for a moment. It was unlikely that it was loud enough to carry up onto the second and third floors of my house. I fixed a cup of coffee and gulped down a mouthful quickly to appease my caffeine craving body but then slowed to sip and savor while the butter began to sizzle and pop. A nutty aroma began to waft up from the pan and I grasped the handle to give it a swirl and prevent any one spot from getting too hot.
I poured the egg whites into the ground almond mixture into the still whirring food processor and sprinkled in a tiny bit of almond extract. A little unwillingly, I set the coffee cup down and poured the browned butter into the food processor and then switched it off once it was mixed. The muffin tin was dug out of the cupboard and the wells carefully wiped with butter before I spooned batter into each well. Blackberries were poked in to tops of the batter and I debated pushing them in just a little bit farther. I wish I had.
The Blackberry Financiers were slid into the oven and I picked up my coffee again and the library book and climbed up onto the stool at the kitchen table. I had eighteen minutes before the financiers were due out of the oven and that was plenty of time to finish my first cup of coffee and choose the next thing I would make from Ripe For Dessert.
The last five minutes was sweet torture as a buttery almond scent filled the kitchen. When I bit into a piping hot financier and a blackberry burst its scorching juices into my mouth was a different sort of sweet torture altogether.
