Rice Flour Blueberry Financiers

I love flour!  I read a post recently that displayed flour pouring out of a grain mill.  Wouldn't it be awesome to grind your own flour fresh when you're ready to bake some crusty loaf of whole-grain-to-die-for bread???--like grinding coffee beans fresh every morning for a pot of hot coffee???  Well I don't expect to go that far, but I do love the feel and smell of different flours.  Someone who knows that gets me a different kind of flour regularly and I have the fun and challenge of baking something from it.  This time it's rice flour.  One of my favorite sites gave me the inspiration for how to use my rice flour. Tartelette posted a recipe for Financiers with rice flour substituted for wheat flour.  I did a little research on Financiers and here's my version:

Financiers are usually made with wheat and almond flour.  Fruit in the center is optional.  I tried some of each and prefer the fruit added.  I found when substituting rice flour for the wheat, about 7/8 cup of rice flour = 1 cup wheat flour.  The almond flour is toasted and the butter is browned before beginning this recipe.

Toasted almond flour:

  Turn oven to 350 deg. F.  Spread almond flour over cookie sheet and toast in oven 6-8 minutes until lightly browned. 

Browned butter - beurre noisette:
  Put 1/2 cup of butter in a small pan over medium heat.  Bring it to a boil, swirling pan occasionally.  A foam will form on the butter.  Continue to cook it until the butter looks clear and the milk solids have dropped to the bottom of the pan and have turned deep brown.  Immediately remove from heat and pour through a cheesecloth-lined strainer.  Allow to cool.  Only 1/3 cup is needed for this recipe.  Use the rest to butter the pans.

Blueberry Financiers with Rice Flour

1/2 cup toasted almond flour

1/4 cup rice flour

3/4 cup vanilla confectioner's sugar (made by storing a vanilla bean in a jar of confectioner's sugar a couple weeks)  or plain confectioner's sugar and 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract

1/8 tsp. salt

4 large egg whites, lightly beaten

1/3 cup beurre noisette

Blueberry preserves

Preheat oven to 400 deg. F.  Place 12 Financier or tart molds on a cookie sheet and use a pastry brush to coat the inside of each one with some of the browned butter.  If you don't have those, you can use a mini-muffin pan. (I baked some using paper cupcake liners and some without--the ones without liners came right out of the molds nicely.  The paper was hard to remove from the others.)

In a large bowl whisk the flours, sugar and salt together.  Fold in the lightly-beaten egg whites and the 1/3 cup beurre noisette until well combined.  Scoop by spoonfuls into the molds.  Using the tip of a spoon place about a level teaspoon of blueberry preserves into the center of each little cake.  Bake 15 to 20 minutes until lightly browned and springy to the touch.  Remove from the molds and cool on a rack. 

These can be sprinkled lightly with confectioner's sugar when cool, but I love them just as they are with a pot of hot, sweet tea.