Apricot and Pumpkin Seed Butter Financiers

There are all sorts of butters.

Last weekend I mixed 1/4 cup of honey with a stick of butter and a teaspoon each of cinnamon and vanilla, and smeared it on cornbread.

Whut.  I know.
 
There is peanut butter, and almond butter, and cashew butter too.

All interchangeable in cookie recipes.

You could also grind up hazelnuts and mix it with chocolate, if you wanted to. 

You could even put that in a cookie!

Wait, I'm getting carried away.

What I wanted to ask is, did you know you could make your own pumpkin seed butter?  Now that you've thought about it, you're like, 'why not?'  But did you ever think about it before?

I didn't, until these sweet little cakes.

Muffin-y, cakey cakes.

With homemade pumpkin seed butter and almond flour, they have a nutty richness that makes the crumb soft and moist, with just a little grainy bite.

Top with the spring fruit of your choice.  The original recipe called for cherries, but we don't quite have cherries just now.

What we do have?  Fragrant, blushing apricots.

I'll take it, I say!

Sprinkle with a little ground hazelnut, for pizzazz.  Extra almond flour will also do.  Or crumbled up pumpkin seeds.  Take your pick, my friends.

And enjoy.

Apricot and Pumpkin Seed Butter Financiers (recipe adapted ever so slightly from Canelle et Vanille)

Makes about 12 small cakes

4 egg whites
115 grams sugar
110 grams almond flour
pinch of salt
50 grams pumpkin seeds, toasted
30 grams olive oil
3 apricots, quartered (or eighth'ed if you like them smaller)
2-4 tablespoons ground hazelnuts (or almond flour, or ground pumpkin seeds, etc)

Toast the pumpkin seeds and when cool, grind them to a fine powder in a food processor or grinder. Add the olive oil while processor running to form a paste. Set aside.

Whisk together the egg whites and the sugar. Add the almond and quinoa flours and the salt. Whisk to incorporate. Add the pumpkin seed butter.

Pipe the batter into baking cups and bake at 350F for about 10 minutes. Place an apricot quarter (or eighth) on top of each financier, dust with ground hazelnuts, and bake for another 15-18 minutes until lightly golden on top.