Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Flourless Pecan Vanilla Mini Cakes

vanillapecancakes

I found a recipe for Walnut mini cakes over at La Tartine Gourmande a long time ago, and have had it among my del.icio.us bookmarks ever since. I finally had the time and occasion to use it today! However, I didn't have walnuts. I did have pecans though, so I used that. And where Béa used cane sugar, I used home made vanilla sugar. (Which you can easily make by combining sugar with a few vanilla beans in a jar - just refill the sugar as you use it.) Very, very yum. These are tiny little things - I used my mini muffin pan for baking - and they were great with a cup of coffee. Not really cupcakes, not really muffins, but small flourless nutty wonders. Do try them! Perfect if you're gluten intolerant, too.

Flourless Pecan Vanilla Mini Cakes
Makes 35 tiny cakes

280 g pecans (or walnuts)
75 g powdered sugar
100 g butter, at room temperature
pinch of flaky sea salt
6 egg whites (divided)
40 g homemade vanilla sugar

Mix the pecans in a food processor with the powdered sugar until medium coarse. Mix with the butter and two of the eggwhites until you have a stiff, sticky batter. Add the salt.

Beat the remaining four egg whites until quite stiff. Add the vanilla sugar, a little at a time, and beat until you have a glossy, thick meringue. Fold in with the other batter.

Dollop into mini muffin cups, and bake at 175°C for about 10 minutes.

Recipe in Swedish:
Mjuka kakor med pecannötter och vanilj

4 comments:

thepassionatecook said...

this is right up my alley! i have so many nuts at home that i'd like to use before the summer - do you think these travel and would keep even at henley? or is the meringue-type mix too fluffy and will collapse with heat and moisture?

Anne said...

Johanna - I think they'd totally travel well for Henley! They're pretty solid. (But don't cram a ton of them into a small box, obviously.) I accidentally left some out over night, and that didn't make them at all worse. If anything, I liked them even better this morning.

Anonymous said...

Hi Anne, you have a really lovely blog!
Thank you for the tip on vanilla sugar. It never came across my mind that it can be that easy!

Sea said...

This is a lovely recipe- I am gluten free so I'm very excited to see a clever flourless pecan cake recipe. I'm also eager to try the vanilla sugar. I've been thinking of trying this trick for a while now and your blog finally tipped me over the edge!

-Sea

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