Brown Butter Coconut Financiers

These tender and very buttery financiers have a deep coconut flavor and a slightly chewy, almost macaroon-like texture from the addition of shredded, unsweetened coconut. When making the brown butter, be sure to let it get dark golden in color for the nuttiest flavor; you want it just shy of burnt. This is the ideal way to use up all those egg whites in your freezer.

Ingredients

• 16 tablespoons/226 grams butter (2 sticks), more for greasing muffin tins
• 1 tablespoon/15 milliliters coconut oil
• ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons/80 grams unsweetened shredded coconut
• 2 ⅔ cups/300 grams confectioners’ sugar
• ¾ cup/100 grams all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon/1 1/2 grams fine sea salt
• 1 cup egg whites (about 6 to 8 large egg whites)
• 1 tablespoon/15 milliliters dark rum
• Sweetened shredded coconut, for topping

30 small cakes

Preparation

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease 30 mini muffin tins.
2. Melt butter in a large skillet over medium heat until the milk solids fall to bottom of pan and become a rich brown, about 5 minutes. Strain brown butter through a mesh sieve into bowl. Stir in coconut oil and reserve.
3. In a food processor, process unsweetened coconut until very fine. Transfer to a bowl. Sift in sugar, flour and salt. Using a spatula, fold in egg whites (no need to beat them first) and rum until batter is moistened. Slowly mix in brown butter mixture until well combined.
4. Spoon batter into tins and sprinkle tops with shredded sweetened coconut, separating any clumps with your fingers. Bake, rotating pans several times, until edges are dark brown and tops are golden, 20 to 24 minutes. Cool on rack for 5 minutes and pop out financiers onto rack.

• Note: Measurements for dry ingredients are given by weight for greater accuracy. The equivalent measurements by volume are approximate.

45 minutes