Friday, March 04, 2011

Blueberry and Lemon Friands

Lemon blueberry friands / Sidruni-mustikafriandid

Ever heard of friands? These are the Australian "cousin" of the famous French financiers, the little moist egg-white cakes. Both are excellent for using up all those egg whites in the kitchen if you're tired of making Pavlovas and meringues! There are some differences, however. Whereas the financiers tend to use browned butter and are plain, the friands are made with melted butter and usually with the addition of fruit or berries. Another difference is the shape - the financiers are (traditionally) baked in oblong rectangular forms (to look like gold bars, apparently), the friands are usually baked in small oval tins (though you can use regular muffin tins or even tiny fluted tins like this talented Estonian food photographer did). Dorie Greenspan has written more about those two pastries.

I've adapted a recipe from BBC Good Food magazine. Note that I used ground whole almonds - hence the slightly darker colour of the cakes. The texture has more, well, bite to it as well, but you can obviously also use ground blanched almonds.

Blueberry and Lemon Friands
(Mustika ja sidruni friandid)
Makes 8 friands, suitable for freezing

Blueberry lemon friands / Mustika-sidrunifriandid

100 g unsalted butter, melted
125 g icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
30 g plain flour/all-purpose flour (50 ml or 3 Tbsp + 1 tsp)
80 g finely ground almonds
3 medium-sized egg whites
finely grated zest of one lemon
a generous handful of blueberries or bilberries

Preheat the oven to 200C. Generously butter eight non-stick friand or muffin tins.
Sift the icing sugar and flour into a bowl, add the almonds and mix.
Whisk the egg whites in another bowl until they form a light, floppy foam.
Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients, pour in the egg whites and lemon rind, then lightly stir in the butter to form a soft batter.
Divide the batter among the tins. Sprinkle some berries over each cake.
Bake in the middle of a pre-heated 200 C oven for about 20 minutes, until just firm to the touch and golden brown on top.
Cool in the tins for 5 minutes, then turn out and cool on a wire rack. To serve, dust lightly with icing sugar.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tänan, see on mu tänase unistuse täitumine! Sattusin More kohvikus imehead friandi sööma ning imestasin, kuidas mina sellisest prantsuse keeksikesest midagi ei tea. Tuleb välja, et ei olegi prantslaste oma, tore. Ühtlasi sain viite fantastilise toidufotograafi lehele - kuidas ma varem märganud ei ole?
Ka

dining room table said...

I miss making something out of blueberries. It would be really nice to make something again. Thanks for the reminder.

Grammy T. said...

Hi Nami-Nami,
I found you when I was looking up a sauerkraut recipe. You have a wonderful site. And I don't have a bloggie friend from Estonia.
Love,
Grammy T.

ChichaJo said...

Love these little cakes...have made a chocolate version care of Donna Hay :)

Pille said...

Kadri - no vaata kui tore! Ma olen nüüd juba kolm korda erinevaid friande teinud, nii mõnusad on. Ja tavalised muffinivormid sobivad ka muidugi. (Nõus - Zapxpxau toidupildid on i-m-e-l-i-s-e-d!)

DiningRoomTable - can you get blueberries where you live? I actually used locally picked bilberries, but they're very similar.

Grammy T - welcome to Nami-Nami!!! Did you find the sauerkraut recipe you needed?

ChichaJo - hope you have the recipe on your blog? I'd love to make a chocolate version!

Sara said...

Financiers are my "go to" recipe whenever I need to use up egg whites. I will have to add friands to the repertoire. I had never heard of these before so I am absolutely bookmarking this post!

Valerie said...

Oh, I have blueberries right now! I might get time to make these.