Passionfruit friands and lemon curd

Do you like friands?  I had not experienced the joy of a friand for a few years until this week, when I finally got around to making Kate McGhie's recipe for passionfruit friands from p4 of the Taste section of the Herald Sun, published 12 July 2011.  These buttery yet light little cakes are an absolute joy to eat, and the passionfruit pulp in Kate's version added contrasting tang and crunch. 

As you can see, my friands were left a tad too long in the oven:

however, they still tasted delicious, with the browner bits having a nice, caramelised crunch.

To make these friands, you will need:

5 egg whites (I had heaps in the freezer left over from making pastry)
76g self raising flour
200g icing sugar
125g almond meal
189g melted butter
2 passionfruit

friand or mini muffin moulds (Kate made 20, I got 12 in a regular sized 12 hole friand tin)

Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius.  (I wonder was this a little hot - my large friands baked to a dark brown within 20 minutes at this temperature, so I suggest 180 degrees.)

Grease your muffin tin or friand tin well.  (I sprayed mine with cooking oil.)

Whisk the egg whites to the soft peak stage.

Sift the flour, icing sugar and almond meal over the egg whites.  (I find that almond meal is too coarse to sift, so I just added it after the flour and icing sugar.)

Pour the melted butter around the inner edges of the bowl, and add the passionfruit pulp.

Using a rubber spatula, carefully fold all of the ingredients together, being careful not to deflate the egg whites.

Spoon the batter into your friand moulds (I always find that an icecream scoop is perfect for this - it picks up around the right amount of batter and prevents spills.)

Bake the friands for 15 minutes in the oven (remember, this timing is for 20 small friands - I think that 15 minutes would have been enough for my 12 regular sized friands at this temperature, so keep an eye on them!) until the friands have risen and are springy in the middle when touched.

Remove the baked friands from the oven and allow them to cool for a few minutes in the tin before unmoulding.  Be careful when turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely - I ran a knife around the edge of mine, but still found that they stuck a little resulting in a few casualties.

Enjoy with a nice cuppa for arvo tea (as Sunday Reed was so fond of).    

I also made a half batch of Stephanie Alexander's lemon curd using the two egg yolks left over from my meringue making adventures earlier in the week:

Stephanie's recipe is my favourite lemon curd recipe - it has the right balance of tart and sweet, and doesn't end up sugary. (My brother, bless his heart, buys me home-made lemon curd every now and then from a market stall at Cabarlah, and it is always very grainy and sugary.)

You can enjoy this lemon curd with the friands, or spread on muffins, scones, or toast, as a cake filling, or as a sauce for icecream.  And it's a great way to use up any egg yolks left over from friand making!