WHAT YOU NEED

For the Financier batter

120g (4¼ oz) unsalted butter
2 large lemons
110g (3¾ oz) pure icing (confectioners’) sugar
35g (1¼ oz) soft plain (all-purpose) flour (8–9% protein)
¼ teaspoon (2 g) fine sea salt
75g (2¾ oz) blanched almond meal
100g (3½ oz) egg whites, from approx. 3–4 eggs

For the lemon syrup

40g (1½ oz) pure icing (confectioners’) sugar
70g/ml (2½ oz) fresh lemon juice

For the lemon glaze

100g (3½ oz) icing (confectioners’) sugar
20g/ml (¾ oz) fresh lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Grab eight small moulds – use cupcake tins or little dariole moulds. I splurged on a financier tin from Korea that makes long fingers, and love it.

Brown the butter: Cook the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until medium brown speckles form on the base. Pour into a small bowl to quickly stop cooking, scraping in all the brown goodness too.

Brush the interior of the financier tins or little moulds with a light coating of the browned butter (the rest is for the batter). Finely zest one lemon into the remaining butter, then express-chill in the fridge and temp check to approx. 20°C (68°F) – it should still be liquid (it makes the batter thicker and easier to use when fresh). Squeeze in enough lemon to make 70 g/ml (2½ oz) juice and set aside.

Finish the batter: Sift the icing sugar, flour and salt into a small bowl and place the almond meal on top. In a wide bowl, hand-whisk the egg whites until just foamy. Stir the drys into the whites and hand-whisk gently until just combined, then hand-whisk in the brown butter. (You can chill the batter at this point for up to 2 days.)

Into each mould, spoon 40–45 g (1½–1¾ oz) of the batter or enough batter to 90 per cent fill each cavity. If using chilled batter, it is more like a paste, so pipe the batter into the moulds. (Depending on the tin size, you may have extra batter.)

Bake the fins for 12–14 minutes until they are pale brown around the top edges and have pert little bumps. If any batter has puffed over the edge of the tin during baking, push the bulges back in line, while hot, using a small knife.

Make the lemon syrup while the fins are baking. Sift the icing sugar into a small bowl, then hand-whisk the lemon juice in to make a thin syrup.

Roll in the syrup: Take the fins out of the oven and invert onto a cooling rack lined with baking paper, teasing them out of the tins with a rounded butter knife if they need help – the lemon syrup and metal rack can react and create grey marks. Cool the fins for 1 minute.
Give each fin a quick roll in the syrup, then place onto the rack. Leave to cool for 5 minutes.

Make the lemon glaze: Place the icing sugar in a bowl, then vigorously hand-whisk 30 g/ml (1 oz) of the leftover syrup in to make a very thick glaze that drools thickly from the whisk – use extra juice if you need. Spoon the glaze onto one of the fins – give it a suggestive push in the direction you would like it to go, then let gravity do the rest so it settles into a smooth finish. Carefully adjust the consistency after the first one – add a few drops more juice at a time or a sprinkling of icing sugar. If the glaze is good, continue to glaze two or three at a time, zesting the other lemon directly over the fins to rain on the glaze. If you leave the glaze too long, it dries firm and loses sticking power. Once glazed, c’est fini!

Keep and store: Store the fins airtight at room temp for up to 2–3 days, then refrigerate for another 3 days.