Festive Friands

And for those of you not familiar with these little cakes that is not a typo!

I first encountered  friands while watching Better Homes and Gardens during a trip to Oz a few years ago and I have made them several times since.  I really hope they are not part of the  current wave of small cake trends; muffins, cupcakes, cake pops, whoopie pies, etc. With their light but moist consistency, ground nuts and fruit they deserve to be stalwarts of a baking repertoire. Typically they are not adorned with frosting - they don't need it- and although with their butter and sugar content, they, and any other cakes, are not going to appear on any healthy diet sheet, let's consider a little damage limitation here.

The classic shape is this rather elegant oval but lacking the moulds for that, I always used a muffin pan to bake them. Recently however, a silicone  friand pan arrived in the post as a surprise present so I was delighted to have the excuse to bake some.  The original recipe used blueberries and lemon zest and I have made them with blackcurrants and other berry fruits. I thought it was time to adapt the recipe to a more seasonal theme.

 Spiced Cranberry Friands

Ingredients:

• 180g unsalted butter
• 125 ground almonds
• 80g plain flour
• 250g icing sugar
• 2 teaspoons mixed spice
• 6 egg whites
• 100g dried cranberries
• juice of a clementine
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Tin: *12 small cake moulds, either a muffin pan, mini-loaf tins or mini-cake tins. Each should hold 1/2 cup (4fl.oz or approx 125 ml)
Oven temperature:190 deg C

You need to:

1. Butter the moulds well and set the oven to 190 deg to heat up.
2. Mix the cranberries with the clementine juice in a small bowl, microwave for 30 seconds and leave to cool and plump up. (If you are using fresh cranberries, you can skip this step and just increase the amount of berries to 140g.)
3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Let it bubble away for 5 minutes, keeping an eye on it. Resist the urge to be getting on with the rest of the preparation. This step somewhat clarifies the butter, driving out liquid. It will turn a deeper gold colour and also enriches the flavour of the friands.
4. Place the  ground almonds  in a large bowl and sift in the flour, icing sugar and spice. Mix well together. 
5. In another bowl whisk the egg whites until frothy - no need to go as far as soft peaks. Stir them into the almond, sugar, flour mixture. 
6. Stir in the butter and vanilla extract. Use a folding action and stir just enough to ensure all is combined.
7. Set aside a few of the berries to scatter on top of each friand and fold the rest into the mixture.
8. Fill each mould about 3/4 full with batter and place a few of the reserved berries on top of each cake.
9. Bake in the centre of the oven for 25-30 minutes. They should be slightly risen ( I know, no raising agent just whisked egg whites!) golden brown and spring back when lightly pressed.
10. Take them out and let them cool in the tins for 5-10 minutes before turning them out on a cake rack. 

Notes:
As I said before these don't need icing. If you are serving them as part of a festive feast and their unadorned tops seem to be rebuking you with "couldn't be bothered" negligence, then drift on a light sifting of icing sugar or the merest artistic drizzle of chocolate. 
You could also enhance the almond flavour with a few drops of almond essence or almond flavoured liqueur added with the vanilla.

*I have yet to see the oval moulds here in any cookware shop, but reasonably priced silicone moulds can be found on line here. 

And as for all those leftover egg yolks, now is a good time to have those because you could use them to:

• make enriched short crust pastry for mince pies
• glaze savoury pastries like sausage rolls
• make mayonnaise to use in turkey sandwiches or  to mix with chopped herbs as the basis for dips
• add an extra yolk to make scrambled eggs a little richer
• freeze them for later
• and if the thought of any more cooking has you feeling frazzled, search the internet for homemade hair conditioner recipes and treat yourself to a little pampering.