When was
the last time you made those moist little morsels called friands? Me, probably
two (or three?) years ago when I bought an ice cream maker (which I think now
resides in a cupboard at mum’s) and was using loads of egg yolks for the
custard based. This of course meant lots of egg whites, so for every batch of
nutella ice cream I churned out, I baked a tray of friands.
Hang on. Nutella
ice cream. Why did I stop??
When I
recently found two big packets of almond meal languishing, forgotten, I
also uncovered a couple of
containers holding 13 frozen egg whites. Thirteen! Something had to be done,
and almond meal plus egg whites naturally equals friands.
I’d
forgotten how east friands are to make. Yes, the beaters are involved, but
you’re whisking up egg whites, not creaming sugar into butter, so there’s much
less work involved.
The fruit
for the friands also came from the depths of the freezer: thimble-sized
raspberries and dark plums which I had had the foresight to stone and quarter
before freezing them. I chopped these up into smaller chunks and pushed them
into the stiffish cake batter.
Friands are
nice when they get a little chewy and browned around the edges; the taste and
texture is a nice contrast to the moist cake. Against this gentle, nutty
sweetness was the surprising tartness of the plum chunks. I love contrasts like
that.
Friands
Adapted
from the excellent Women’s Weekly cookbook ‘More cakes and slices’.
- Preheat oven to 190 and pop paper cases into a 12-hole muffin tin (you can see in the first photo I thought I needed an extra silicone case).
- Whisk eggs whites until almost soft peaks.
- Fold in ½ cup plain flour, 1 cup almond meal, 1½ cups icing sugar (soft if lumpy like mine) then stir thru 185 gms butter that you’ve melted. Give it a good strong bash to make sure everything is incorporated and there are no lumps (you’re not trying to preserve any volume from the egg whites here).
- Spoon into the cases, then stud with chunks of fresh or frozen fruit such as berries, plum, apple, pear - whatever you fancy.
- Bake for 25 minutes. When done, cook in tins for a few minutes before popping onto a rack and cooling completely – or eating while still warm with a good cup of tea.
Mmm, friands. I have never made them, but will now, because we always have leftover egg whites from custard and lemon butter and icecream making (nutella icecream! Must try that too!) We make a lot of meringues and biscotti with our egg whites.
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