Financiers by Chihiro Sweets Shop - My New Favourite Retail Financiers

Chihiro Sweets Shop is a brand I only heard about recently, probably because it has only ONE shop in Osaka, apparently, and so is limited in production volume. But Chocolate Origin recently brought the brand in, so I got to try these premium treats, in quite a number of flavors too! Apparently they were baked in Singapore according to the shop attendant.

I picked up 5 flavours - cultured butter (also known as fermented butter), hazelnut, earl grey, pistachio and dark chocolate. In this post, we tried the Cultured Butter Financier, Hazelnut Financier and Earl Grey Financier first. And I was blown away by the extremely high quality of each!

Chihiro Sweets Shop Financiers - Cultured Butter, Early Grey and Hazelnut Flavours
Chihiro Sweets Shop Financiers Packaging - Dark Chocolate, Pistachio, Cultured Butter, Early Grey and Hazelnut Flavours
Overall, each had the thick moistness of perfect butter cakes that the best gourmet pastry chefs produce, but of course with the almond powder texture of financiers. Yet it was not soggy at all, compared to some other moist financiers. This was around the same standard as pure butter cakes which this excellent pastry chef who worked at 6-star hotels made (and I tried the home version he made for friends and family which is usually with fewer cost constraints). 

It was hands-down better than Henri Charpentier's financiers or madeleines in flavour, for comparison. Chihiro's was moister and the butter flavour was more prominent than Henri Charpentier's, but one downside could be that it did feel a tad more oily as a result, although that did not bother me. They seem to have used more butter. The price also seems to reflect this - it costs around ¥370 per piece on its official online store, whereas Henri Charpentier costs around ¥170 per piece. (Henri Charpentier is another premium commercial pastry brand from Japan, and until now had ranked highest on my list of gourmet madeleines and financiers.) And currently, almost items are sold out at Chihiro, probably due to holiday gift giving.

Each financier also brought out the respective flavour very prominently and distinctly!

Even if I hadn't read the description, I would instantly have known what flavor it was. Furthermore, the amount of ingredients (such as salt) seemed adjusted for each flavor so that the taste balance was perfect. So I was blown away by the meticulousness and attention to detail.

Now on to individual flavor reviews. From left to right in the image below, they were - Cultured Butter, Earl Grey and Hazelnut.

Chihiro Sweets Shop Financiers Texture - Cultured Butter, Early Grey and Hazelnut Flavours
Cultured Butter

This was possibly my favourite butter cake treat ever. It had a very full and rich fragrance and sweetness of milky butter, and to add to that it was perfectly balanced with salt. It also did not taste fake or like an overkill at all! But extremely pure, natural and rounded - mellow with umami and a pop of salt. 

The wrapper was in colours of a French flag, but in an image on their online store, I saw wholesale butter packaging that indicated the fermented butter as coming from Takachiho Farm in Kyushu.

Hazelnut

This variation was most interesting as it contained NO almond powder - all of it was replaced by hazelnut, as you can see in the ingredients list below. It was a very intense and rich dark and woody hazelnut taste, to the point of having a pleasing woody fragrance. It's not so much the sweet nut taste you find in flavoured coffee drinks, but the natural woody taste in hazelnut pralines and somewhat in Nutella. It was also perfectly balanced by the butter and salt in the financier cake base.

Earl Grey

The rich and prominent bergamot fragrance immediately hits you for this one, intense enough to pick out the intricate complex notes. The tea notes were also very rich and complex - I'm not sure which variety but it's the most herb-like part of the Ceylon, Assam and maybe Darjeeling Tea blend used for traditional earl grey. 

Overall, I was so surprised that the earl grey flavor was so strong, as it exceeded the intensity even of those bottled fragrant earl grey Japanese teas such as by Kirin.

Verdict: You absolutely need to try these. It's worth shipping them from Osaka at least once, in my opinion, as it will become a good tasting benchmark for top quality pastries.

Ingredients List

Finally, here is the ingredients list for all the flavours for reference. Extremely pure, as you can see.

Chihiro Sweets Shop Financiers Ingrediennts - Dark Chocolate, Pistachio, Cultured Butter, Early Grey and Hazelnut Flavours

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