chocolate hazelnut friands

chocolate hazelnut friands

• 7 Jul 2025

I subscribe to Liz Prueitt's substack feed, 'Have Your Cake'. Liz is one of the founders of Tartine Bakery and her recipes are all gluten free. She recently shared a recipe for chocolate hazelnut financiers by Sandra Holl of Floriole Bakery. They looked delicious and I had everything I needed to make them. Rather than making the ganache from the recipe, I used leftover hazelnut ganache I had in my fridge. If you'd like the original ganache recipe, please refer to the link.

Financiers are more commonly known as friands in Australia and I own a friand tin, so it was pulled out of the cupboard for the occasion. Although it's supposed to be a non-stick tin, my friand tin let me down. Despite thoroughly greasing the tin, 7 of the 8 friands stuck to the tin. I don't trust non-stick tins and usually grease and flour the tin and place a small piece of baking paper in the base, but I was off to the ballet and I was in a hurry so I skipped a few of those steps. Thankfully the friands are very moist and once out of the tin, I was able to wrangle them into shape with an off set spatula.

Here's the recipe which makes 8 friands or small cakes. For all my recipes I use a 250ml cup and a 20-ml tablespoon, unsalted butter and 60g eggs. My oven is a conventional gas oven so if your oven is fan forced you may need to reduce the oven temperature by 20°C.

Chocolate hazelnut friands - makes 8
Ingredients

115g unsalted butter, melted, cooled
pinch sea salt flakes

80g hazelnut meal
50g cocoa powder
150g icing sugar
½ tsp baking powder

140g/4-5 egg whites, large, room temperature

Hazelnut ganache

75g hazelnuts, toasted and peeled

45g icing sugar

120g good quality milk chocolate (minimum 40% cocoa solids)

100g crème fraiche or cream

To assemble
120ml ganache, warmed enough to drizzle
½ cup toasted hazelnuts, cut in half

Sea salt flakes, optional

Friands

Add the sea salt flakes to the melted butter and set to one side. Whisk the hazelnut meal, cocoa, sugar, and baking powder together in a bowl, then stir in egg whites just until combined. Slowly add the melted butter, stirring to incorporate. Cover the bowl then refrigerate the batter until firm.

Preheat oven to 190°C, conventional. Grease eight wells of a muffin or friand tin then dust the wells with cocoa powder. Divide the batter between 8 wells then place on the centre rack of the preheated 190°C, conventional and bake for 9 minutes. Rotate the tin then reduce heat to 180°C, conventional, and bake for another 9 minutes. Check the friands are cooked with a cake tester - a few attached crumbs are okay. Remove the tray from the oven and place on a wire cooling rack. Loosen the friands with a knife before cooling. When cool, turn out of moulds.

Hazelnut ganache
Place the hazelnuts and icing sugar in the bowl of a small food processor or a blender and blitz together until a smooth paste forms. Use a spatula to scrape down the sides of the bowl regularly in order to achieve a consistent, smooth texture and engage the pulse function (if you have one) to return the nuts to the middle of the bowl. Once you are happy the paste is smooth, turn off and leave the paste in the food processor bowl.

Melt the milk chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl over a saucepan of barely simmering water, ensuring the water doesn't touch the bottom of the bowl or you can do this in the microwave oven in 30 second bursts. Stir the chocolate occasionally to distribute the heat and try not to heat the chocolate higher than 50°C. Pour the chocolate into the bowl of the food processor with the paste and blend until very smooth, again scraping down the sides of the bowl to create a cohesive mixture. Turn off the machine again.

Bring the crème fraîche or cream to the boil in a small saucepan over medium heat, then pour it into the food processor with the hazelnut paste and continue to blend until shiny and silky. Pour the ganache into a bowl then cover it and leave at room temperature to cool until ready to use. If the ganache has solidified, return to the microwave for 15 seconds to soften, then stir vigorously until shiny.

To assemble

Spoon some of the hazelnut ganache on top of the friand, just so it reaches the sides. Let it set. Set some of the toasted nuts decoratively on top. If you like, drizzle some additional ganache over the whole cake then finish with a few sea salt flakes.

Alternatively, you can simply dip the tops of the cakes into the melted ganache, letting the excess drip off. Top with nuts and drizzle additional ganache over the whole cake if you like. Store in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

These little morsels are just delicious and even though I'm not a chocolate lover, I managed to polish off 2 of these babies.

See you all again next week with some more baking from my kitchen.

Bye for now,

Jillian