Blueberry Friands and Vanilla Frosting

Hello all

I thought I'd write a short post on some lovely little friands I made a couple of weeks back. The recipe is from my trusty 'Sweet Tooth' bible by Lily Vanilli.

As we all know I find it near on impossible to stick to a recipe and here I've changed the redcurrants Lily uses for blueberries, but any slightly tart fruit would be perfect. I also added a little blob of vanilla frosting to mine for my super sweet tooth!

This is an interesting one as eggs whites are used for leavening and it's made up mostly of ground almonds. I love love love baking with ground almonds, they give such a gorgeous texture. The friands are so moist and light but with a little chew to them! It's almost like a cross between a sponge and frangipane.

Blueberry Friands

This recipe makes between 14-17 cakes depending on how much mixture you add to each case, mine made 16. So if you make sure you have about 18 cases you'll be ready and raring to go. Silicone cases work particularly well.

Ingredients

90g   Plain flour

200g  Icing sugar - sifted

180g  Ground almonds

Pinch of salt

2     Lemons - Finely zested

6     Egg whites

200g  Unsalted butter - melted and cooled

Handful of blueberries

1. Preheat your oven to 180C Fan/Gas 6.

2. Measure the flour and icing sugar into a large bowl and mix together. Now add the salt, ground almonds and lemon zest and mix again.

3. Whip the eggs whites until soft peaks form and then very gently fold them into your dry ingredients followed by the melted butter. Once throughly mixed this will create a batter.

4. Spoon your mixture evenly into the the cases, then gently press a few berries onto each one. Now put them in the oven for 15-20 minutes or until a cocktail stick comes out clean.

5. Once they are done leave them to cool completely before adding any frosting.

Vanilla frosting

This makes a batch of 450g - so you'll need to adapt the recipe to fit the friands if your just going to squidge a little blob on top of each cake. Or you could make the whole lot and keep it by for dipping biscuits or fruit into..!

Ingredients

100g  Unsalted butter - room temperature

300g  Icing sugar

1tsp  Vanilla extract

75ml  Double cream

1. Beat the butter on a medium-high speed for about 5 minutes, until very light in colour.

2. Add the vanilla, sugar and cream and beat on a medium-high speed for another 2 minutes or so.

*Tips*

Just after adding the icing sugar to the butter I use a big spoon to bring the ingredients together. I find if you go straight in with an electric mixer you will be living and breathing icing sugar for the next week. It's a mess and gets absolutely everywhere!

Depending on what you are using your frosting for you may want it softer or stiffer.

- If you are covering a cake in frosting you'll want it relatively soft.

- For piping you'll want the frosting stiffer, so that it holds a peak.

- For a crumb coat you'll want it very soft.

Measure the amount of cream you are adding to the frosting to ensure you reach the right consistency. You can also use whole milk, but you won't need as much.

You can keep frosting in the fridge for a while. When you need to use it let it warm up a little and give it a whizz with the mixer.

And here we have a De La Soul classic!