HAZELNUT FINANCIERS

In my last post I used hazelnuts in a pasta and spinach dish. Well after having made that, I had plenty of hazelnuts leftover and was dying to make some use of them. When I opened the fridge I saw we had one lonely egg, probably crying out my name, and without thinking twice I cracked that egg and decided to go ahead and make a small portion of financiers. Financiers are delicious pastries traditionally made from almonds, eggwhites and other good stuff. I have always loved almond based sweets- just to state a few: amaretti, nougats, marzipan, amygdalota (please see Peter’s great post on this one) but I realized that hazelnuts may turn out as delicious.

If the name “financiers” contains the word “finance” in them, then it may be for a reason. Legend says that financiers were created by a patissier called “Lasne”. He wanted to come up with a delicacy for finance men that would not leave a mess behind or leave their hands all greasy and covered with crumbs. Today, you can find financiers alongside madeleines, brioches, croissants etc in almost any boulangerie and patisserie in France. They are wonderful plain or with fruits, chocolates and other sweet ingredients. Previously I have also substituted almonds with pistachios and what is great about financiers is that with a base recipe you can play around almost infinitely with the flavours and choice of nuts. I do need to admit though, that the hazelnut variation turned out to taste amazingly good, and for the sweet tooths out there do indulge and enjoy them with a bit of Nutella for a total hazelnut experience!

Recipe for hazelnut financiers:

2 egg whites
60 g fine sugar
10 g flour
10 g fecule
50 g ground powdered hazelnuts
25 g butter

Making it:
Preheat oven to 180C. In a bowl whisk the egg whites and gradually add the sugar (as if you were making a meringue). Then add the flour, fecule, and powdered hazelnuts. Mix well. Follow with the melted butter and mix. Fill in your moulds with the batter and bake for 15 mins.