Raspberry friands

Friands are a favourite in Australian cafes.  The word "friand" means "little delicacy". They are closely related to the French financier, being made with egg whites, icing sugar and almond meal, but they are baked in an oval shape rather than a bar.  Friands come in all sorts of flavour combinations - you can flavour the basic friand recipe however you like.

I adapted a mango and pistachio friand recipe to make raspberry friands.  I was very pleased with this recipe, as the resulting friands were lovely and moist - I have had problems in the past with friands being too dry.  Raspberries added an irresistible flavour to the basic friand.

Below I have set out how to make these friands: 

Adapted from Bake: Favourite Home-Made Recipes by Allyson Gofton

1½ cups icing sugar
½ cup plain flour
1 cup ground almonds
175 grams melted butter
6 egg whites
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup frozen raspberries
20 extra raspberries, for decoration

Grease 10 holes of a friand pan (or 10 standard muffin holes), and pre-heat your oven to 190 degrees Celsius.

Sift the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl, and stir in the ground almonds. Make a hollow in the centre of the dry ingredients.

Beat the egg whites until foamy, then pour into the hollow in the dry ingredients with the butter, vanilla and  lemon juice and fold together to combine. Gently fold through the 1/2 cup raspberries (not thawed). 

Divide the batter between the 10 greased friand holes.   Press two raspberries into the top of each friand.  Bake for 20-25 minutes or  until cooked through.  Cool friands in the pan for ~ 5 minutes before unmoulding onto a wire rack to cool.  Dust tops of cooled friands with icing sugar.