Financier-Style Vanilla Bean Poundcake

These little "financier"-style "poundcakes" are not true financiers (no ground nuts) and not true poundcakes (eggwhites only, not whole eggs). They may not have a technically accurate name, but you could call them tender, moist, buttery little nuggets of flavor. They don't knock your socks off, but they might cause you to wiggle your toes in delight. I ate one just two hours ago, and I wrapped up the rest to put in the freezer so I wouldn't eat all the rest of them in one sitting.

If you thought last week's cake was easy, wait until you try this one. Jim missed the photogenic slicing and seeding of the vanilla bean. The second step--mixing the dry ingredients, including the aforesaid sugar, turned out to be not very photogenic. Ditto for the third step, whisking eggs, milk, and vanilla in a small bowl.

Had I piped the batter into the financier molds, as recommended, I might have gotten something more photogenic, or (more likely) something a lot messier. You know how I feel about piping. Instead, I used the time-honored glob and smooth method of filling the pan.

Mixing everything together was only marginally more photogenic, and that's just because the Beater Blade made nice designs in the batter.

We had a kazillion inches of snow today. Our neighbor Fred used his snowblower on our front sidewalk this morning, so we took him and his wife a little plate of cookies and cakelets to thank them. The cakes look a little on the pale side, but they were perfectly done. If they'd been browner, they might have been too dry. As it was, they were perfect.

The tasting panel this week was cancelled due to a blizzard. Jim says to tell you that he liked these cakes a lot, although there weren't very many of them (9 because that's the number of openings my financier pan has), and he wishes I hadn't put them in the freezer.