Strawberry Friands

I'm having a bit of a friand frenzy at the moment - two batches in as many weeks... These delicious small cakes are very easy to make and really, really tasty!

I was telling a friend that I'd started baking friands, and she said "Aren't they just like muffins squished into a different shape?" It was then that I realised I would need to bake another batch as soon as possible and bring her a sample.

I gave her two friands in a little takeaway container so that her husband could try one too. (He'd been v. upset about not sampling my brownies!) I'm pleased to report that they were a big hit, and deemed to be entirely unlike misshapen muffins after all!




Friands
from Modern Classics Book 2 by Donna Hay
125g butter
1 cup almond meal
1 2/3 cups icing sugar, sifted
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted <--- aarrgh! Edited to add this vital ingredient that I missed in my original post
1/2 teaspoon baking powder 5 egg whites [I couldn't be bothered working out what to do with 5 egg yolks, so I just used frozen egg whites]
1/3 cup fresh or frozen raspberries, blueberries or sliced strawberries [I saw $1 punnets of strawberries while I was queuing at the express lane - it was meant to be!]

Preheat the oven to 180C. Place the butter in a saucepan over low heat and cook until melted and a very light golden colour. Set aside. [I did this the first time I made friands; this time I just melted the butter in the microwave.]

Place the almond meal, icing sugar, flour and baking powder in a bowl and stir to combine. Add the egg whites and stir to combine. Add the butter and stir to combine.

Grease 10 x 1/2 cup capacity muffin tins [of course, if you have friand tins, you might as well use them]. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the mixture into each tin and sprinkle the berries over the top. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden and springy to touch but moist in the centre. [Mine took longer. I think my oven is a bit inconsistent.]

Enjoy!

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