Friands

Friands, my friends, friands.  These are my newly discovered, favorite, yummy treat.  They have these in every coffee shop around town. I always wondered what they were and how to pronounce it! Finally, Saturday morning I took the plunge and bought one. Oh my goodness! It was so good that I had trouble sharing it with Tucker!  Needless to say, I had to learn to make them. I found a great recipe on the web and went to the store to get the ingredients I did not have in the house.  The two ingredients I needed were "icing sugar" and "almond meal."  You may have figured out by now that "icing sugar" is what we call powdered sugar and "almond meal" is ground up almonds.

This morning I melted the butter, whipped the eggs whites and sifted the sugar, flour and almond meal into a thick and a bit grainy batter.  I greased my cupcake pans (wish I had a true friand pan...), added the batter and threw a few blueberries on top of each one.  Then it was into the oven for 25 minutes or so and out came some of the yummiest treats I have had in a long time.  Oops, can't forget the "light dusting" of icing sugar to top it off!  Mmmmmm.

        

         

          

For those of you who want to know more, here it goes-- the "friand" known as the "financier" in France, is a small French cake (not a pastry). It is a light, moist teacake containing almond flour, crushed or ground almonds or almond flavoring.  The cake itself is brown butter, egg whites, powdered sugar and flour.  The name "financier" is said to come from the shaped molds which are typically used and resemble a bar of gold. Another theory is that the cakes became popular in the financial district of Paris.  The "friand" has become popular in Australia and New Zealand are based on the French financier and often contain chocolate, fruit, coconut and nuts.

The recipe you ask. Why here it is. Only some conversions included... :)

Blueberry Friand Recipe

Preparation time: about 20 minutes (excludes baking time)
Makes 6 friands.

100g butter
4 large egg whites (we use eggs with a minimum weight of 59g)
45g (1/4 cup plus 2 1/2 teaspoons) plain flour
140g (1 cup) pure icing sugar
85g (2/3 cup, lightly pressed into the cup with the back of a spoon) almond meal
About 40g (about 30 large) blueberries
Extra icing sugar, for dusting

Preheat oven to 190 degrees Celsius (170 degrees Celsius fan-forced). If you are not using a fan-forced oven, adjust the oven rack to the middle position so the friands brown evenly.

Grease a six hole (1/3 cup capacity holes) non-stick oval friand pan, or six individual 1/3 cup capacity friand pans. If you don't have a friand pan, you could use a muffin pan with 1/3 cup capacity holes.

Melt butter and set aside to cool to lukewarm.

In a medium bowl, beat egg whites with a fork or whisk until foamy (about 30 seconds).

Sift flour, icing sugar and almond meal into the bowl with the egg whites.

Stir ingredients together until just combined.

Add the melted butter to the bowl and stir until just combined.

Divide mixture evenly among the holes of the prepared pan. Place about five blueberries in a cluster in the centre of each friand.

friands in a friand mold