Financiers Are The Mini Cakes Made To Resemble Gold Bars

Isn't a foodie's dream to visit France one day? This is the land of authentic onion soup, beef Bourguignon, and other seriously delicious French recipes. It's also the place where food is an art, Julia Child fell in love with cooking, and a fictional rat named Remy fulfilled his dream of becoming a celebrated chef. France is always a good idea — especially for pastry lovers.

Visiting France with a mission to try the country's classic pastries is sweetly overwhelming. There are tons of desserts and bread types to choose from, each of them with a je ne sais quoi that stands out from the rest. Among this assortment is the financier. This simple cake recipe — which features wheat flour, almond flour, browned butter, and almond flavoring — is baked in small rectangular molds. The result is a moist, nutty, and delicately spongy cake that resembles a bar of gold. In fact, as the financier's 1800s origin story goes, the dessert's inventor wanted to attract the customers surrounding their bakery in Paris' financial district. This cake, then, is named after those who ate it first: financial people.

Reports have it that this 19th century baker was named Lasne, and his financier was actually a replication of a teacake recipe originally created by nuns, which took advantage of leftover egg whites and was called visitandine. Playing off his surroundings, Lasne was the one to shape visitandines into ingot-like rectangles, name them financiers, and make them famous. 

As history demonstrates, financiers were a success, and today they are still a mainstay in both local and international French bakeries. Aside from the original almond financier, the dessert can be found in different shapes and with chocolate, hazelnut, lemon, pistachio, and more flavorings, but purists would agree that the original is best with its almond fragrance and toasty notes from the browned butter. So if you ever get around to making financiers at home, be sure to eat them in the most convenient way possible: as a small bite enjoyed on the run along with coffee — just as the original French financial professionals did.