When our friend Finola was out at Easter she found little cakes in the Super U which she bought for tea.
These were made by the jam people Bonne Maman and called Financiers,they were little rectangular cakes, crisp on the outside and then chewy, buttery and almondy in the centre.
Delicious.
They were, I discovered, called Financiers because of their resemblance to gold ingots when baked.
A good cake for a recession.

I went off to the internet to find a recipe.

Someone somewhere made a version from Hazelnuts which she claimed came from Patricia Wells Provencal Cookbook.
This surprised me, i owned one book of Provencal cooking by Patricia Wells called At Home in Provence but didn’t know she had written a second and one with recipes from my local area. A quick search of the internet revealed a second hand copy selling from a crowd called Thriftbooks in America for a couple of quid (it seems the book was only produced in America) so I sent away for it.
Thriftbooks duly sent it over and (having been posted on April 4th) it arrived yesterday , just six weeks later.
Obviously they are still using Clippers to send their wares.

Anyway I went through the book from stem to stern and no sign whatsoever of my Financiers.
Back to the internet where I discovered from another source that the recipe was in fact in Ms Wells “Bistrot Cooking, a book I already possessed.

No bother though, the Provencal book is superb and I will be using lots of local stuff from it.

In the meantime I made the Financiers, changing things about a little fron the Wells version (I had seen a few on the net by now) and have to confess that the results are brilliant. Better even than the Bonne Manan version Finola bought which started it all off.
They are crisp and chewy, buttery and nutty and with a nice affluent hint of brandy, as becomes a financer.
Here is the final version.

Financiers aux Noisettes et Cognac.

First preset the oven to 230C /440F

180g Butter
210g Caster Sugar
90 g Ground Hazelnuts (or Almonds)
70g Plain Flour
5 to 6 Egg Whites (5 from large eggs, 6 from medium)
2 or 3 tablespoons brandy

First heat the butter in a little pot and simmer it until it turns a nutty brown.
Then pour it into a bowl and leave it cool.
Mix together the three dry ingredients well (a mixer is handy now)

Add in the egg whites and keep mixing until well blended.

Add the noisette butter and the brandy and beat some more.

Now fill little muffin tins with the mixture (unless you happen to have some rectangular Financier moulds) I used about 18.

Put into the oven at this temperature for 10 minutes.
Then reduce the oven to 200 C (400F) and leave in for another 10, then turn off the oven and still leave them in for a further 10.
A fiddle but worth it.

Eat with tea or coffee, with icecream or sorbet or (as I will do tomorrow) with chocolate mousse.
Wonderful.