Financiers Pistache

Financiers Pistache, Paris 2007

A decade ago when I started sampling French patisseries, I was hard-pressed to find recipes for some of my favorites, and I did not have a vast supply of French cookbooks I have since acquired.  I've updated this post from 2007 to include recipes: 

Buying our first baguette on our last trip to Paris, I spied a tray of pistachio financiers and felt my willpower melt away. I have always loved the color and flavor of pistachios. I bought two of them and carried them back to our cozy apartment.

We loved their intense color and flavor.

And thus began my pistachio obsession which hit its peak in Paris. I liked asking for them. Fee-non-see-ay pee-stash may not roll trippingly off the tongue, but it is fun to say. I only wish I had taken more photos of them.

Here are several recipes, published a few years after I wrote this post:

• From Saveur Magazine
• From Food & Wine Magazine
• From Ladurée, (Traveling Foodies)

Why not make a rich financier pistache part of your Mardi Gras celebration?

Apricot-Pistachio Crisp: A Dessert in Progress

Saturday has always been pizza night in my family and it’s a tradition my husband and I have continued.

When I was a child, my mother made her pizzas from scratch, using leftovers for toppings. Meatloaf, sloppy joe mix and even wieners were used and we kids loved it. It was pizza!

We invited my mother for pizza on Saturday. It was a busy day with errands, laundry, housework and my 30-minute stint reading Easter stories to a group of children at the local mall.

Yes, we used store-bought pizzas and enhanced them with additional tomatoes, peppers, olives and sausage. I made a Caesar salad and we cracked open a bottle of shiraz.

It was a simple meal, to be sure, but that does not matter. What matters was that we all sat down together and enjoyed each other’s company.

I’m not here to write about pizzas. I’m talking dessert today.

My mother has a sweet tooth. When she is a guest at my house, my practice is to make a low-carb dessert and send most of it home with her.

I surveyed by cupboards and came up with this makeshift dessert, which I consider a work in progress. It was pretty good, but it needs more.

Apricot-Pistachio Crisp

• 2 cups dried apricots, chopped
• 1 tablespoon white flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 15-ounce can apricots in light syrup
• 1/3 cup sugar-free apricot spread
• ½ cup syrup from canned apricots
• 1 cup pistachios, chopped
• 1 cup chopped salted mixed nuts, chopped
• 3 tablespoons oat or whole-wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 3 tablespoons butter

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Coat chopped apricots in flour, cinnamon and fructose (see photo above). Set aside. Drain, reserving liquid. Chop or even puree canned apricots. Pour into bowl of dried apricots and toss.

Empty this mix into greased bar pan. Blend apricot spread with 1/cup apricot syrup and spread over dried-canned apricot mix. My thought was that this would help bind apricots.

Mix chopped nuts, flour and fructose. Cut in Smart Balance or butter and blend with nut mix. Spread atop apricots. Bake for 30 minutes or until topping turns golden.

The Verdict? Not bad. It was even better the next day. But it needs something else: More cinnamon and perhaps a dash of ground cloves, perhaps. The topping should have included oatmeal, to make it lighter. And I think next time I will up the amount of pistachios and reduce the other nuts (I used pecans, walnuts and cashews).

Your suggestions are welcome. This is very much a work in progress.