Lime and Raspberry Friands

The other day I was in the mood for baking something new, but not too complex. So I decided to make some friands. I pulled out my baking cookbooks to browse a few recipes for ideas (and method), and to my surprise there wasn’t a friand recipe in any of them.

So I jumped onto the internet and went straight to taste.com.au. A quick search later I had seven recipes to look through. I decided to try the lemon friand recipe (given my love for all baked things with citrus in them).

In writing this now, I stopped for a moment to think about why I keep buying cookbooks when there are so many recipes on the internet these days. I suppose the simple answer is I like looking through cookbooks, getting inspiration, new ideas and learning new things. I can find recipes, flavour combinations or cooking techniques I didn’t know existed. Whereas with the internet, I usually already know what I’m looking for, and am looking for different ideas and ways of doing things before I go off and try my own thing.

Okay, cookbook collection justified, back to the friands.

I decided I wanted to add some raspberries to my friands, so off I went to the shops to stock up on almond meal, frozen raspberries and some fresh lemons. I got everything else, but my local big chain supermarket didn’t have any lemons! They did however have limes so I decided to give the recipe a go with limes instead of lemons. I like using limes in my baking, as I think they have a more complex, sweeter citrus taste rather than the straight, strong tartness of lemons (which I also love) and I will often use both lemon and lime together when a recipe only calls for one or the other.

The friands themselves were quite simple to make and turned out well. Although I think I overfilled them so they were a bit bigger than they should be, and also meant I couldn’t serve them the right way with the pattern on top. I liked the combination of lime and raspberry, resulting in a fresh, sweet tartness that balanced well with the sweet and textured friand mix. I’m certainly going to make them again.

Lime and raspberry friands

Makes 10-12

You will need a 12 hole friand pan to make this recipe, although if you don’t have one you could use a cupcake pan.

 Ingredients

• 180g unsalted butter – melted
• 60g plain flour
• 200g icing sugar (and extra to dust)
• 120g almond meal
• 5 egg whites
• Grated zest of 2 limes (or one lemon)
• 100-150g frozen raspberries (I used 6 raspberries per friand)
• Baking spray or more butter to grease the pan

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160C fan forced (180C). Grease the friand pan with baking spray of melted butter. Dust with a little flour, shaking out the excess.
2. Sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl then add the almond meal. Use a whisk to get rid of any lumps in the almond meal and combine well.
3. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites lightly with a fork for about a minute, then add to the dry ingredients along with the melted butter and zest. Stir until combined.
4. Now at this stage you can either add the raspberries in, mix and then fill each friand hole two-thirds full. Or, to ensure each friand has then same amount of raspberries, place a few raspberries in each friand hole, half fill with the mix, top with a few more raspberries and then top up with the mix until it is two-thirds full.
5. Bake for 25-35 minutes (mine took the full 35 minutes but I did overfill mine) until the friands are golden and a skewer comes out clean when inserted into the centre.
6. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar if you want to serve.
7. These will store in an airtight container for a few days.

Adapted from Lemon Friands – taste.com.au

Update – I have also made these in a mini friand tin. They take about 15 minutes to cook in the smaller tin.