friand Archives - Sugar et al

Chocolate Hazelnut Friands with Chocolate Cream Cheese Frosting

22|03|2018

I am really excited today for a multitude of reasons. First, because this post involves chocolate and I am posting a friand recipe after a long time. They are a super favourite treat of mine. And secondly because I have guest posted for the first time. I have blogged for 5 years now (where has time flown by) and it’s nice to do something different.

Kankana from Playful Cooking is not only a talented photographer but also a busy Mum like me. Despite that she manages to come up with food that makes you want to eat your screens, week on week. Her images are a visual treat! So you can check out the guest post and the recipe for these Chocolate Hazelnut Friands on her beautiful blog.

Hope you enjoy them and have a great weekend everyone!

Orange, Honey, Rosemary and Chia Seed Friands/Financiers

24|11|2014

After a lovely little vacation in Melbourne, I am back to the precious confines of my home. Though to be honest, I did not miss cooking and baking, I was very excited at the sight of my kitchen when I came back. Melbourne is a colourful city. That was one of the first things that caught my eyes. The buildings can exist in any colour you dream of. Amongst the grey, brown walls or the striking blue waterbodies all over the city, there would be a yellow wall somewhere, red staircase, an orange coloured bridge…some blue boats floating around. It makes a lovely sight. My camera has been working overtime in the last few days..the birthday pictures of my twins, then Melbourne and the beautiful Victorian countryside. So much to share but I guess I will stick to food photos here. You can see my travel photos on Instagram.

So before I left for Melbourne, I made a birthday cake for my twins and we had an advance celebration at home. It was a big cake and we were happy to come back to it after a vacation of plentiful eating outside. It made a delicious dinner for me last night when I barely had the zeal to put a meal together. I also had these friands in my freezer that made a happy breakfast for all of us. My regular readers would know my love for friands…the lovechild of egg whites and almond meal, both of which I am totally obsessed with. I added some more love to it in the form of orange, honey, rosemary and chia seeds. It sounds like a lot of things happening in these friands but really, you can taste each one of those flavours. They are a treat.

The rosemary leaves add a subtle depth and paired with orange and honey, they elevates the sweet citrus notes to a different level. The chia seeds were a last minute addition because I was introduced to them recently and have been looking for ways to add them to recipes. They provide a crunch to these gorgeous little afternoon tea treats. The great thing about the recipe is that it is totally flexible. Use any nut meal, substitute orange with lemon or lime, use golden syrup or maple syrup instead of honey, poppy seeds in place of chia seed. There is so much you can do to it to make it your own. As you can see, I baked the friands in my mini bundt cake pan which was almost forgotten for a year. Friands can be baked in any shape and size so you can use muffin pans, friand molds or ramekins.

Here are a few photos of the birthday cake. It was a double chocolate cake with a swiss meringue buttercream.

Orange, Honey, Rosemary and Chia Seed Friands/Financiers
Makes 10

1 cup almond meal (ground almonds)
1 1/3 cups icing sugar, sifted
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 teaspoon baking powder, sifted
5 eggwhites
125g butter, melted
1/4 cup honey
Finely grated Zest of 1 large orange
1 tbsp rosemary leaves (fresh or dried), finely chopped
1 tbsp chia seeds

Orange Syrup
Juice of 1 orange
1 tbsp honey

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Lightly grease a 12- capacity muffin pan or mini bundt cake pan. Place the almond meal, icing sugar, flour, baking powder, eggwhites, butter, honey , orange zest, rosemary and chia seeds in a bowl and whisk until combined. Spoon the mixture into the prepared pan and bake for 20–25 minutes or until the friands are golden and cooked through. Remove from oven and release friands immediately. Drizzle with orange syrup .Cool on a wire racK.

To make the syrup : Place the orange juice and honey together in a small saucepan over low heat. Remove as soon as it comes to a boil and blends together.

Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Friands (Financiers)

16|08|2014

Financiers or friands as they are known in Australia are a great way of using up egg whites. Personally, I find it hard to decide between a meringue based dessert and a friand if I happen to have egg whites at home. I love making and eating both immensely. The deciding factor ultimately is whether or not I want to use my electric mixer. Friands are simple to make with a few ingredients and can be put together with just a bowl and a whisk. But that is not really the reason why I love them. Friands use nut meal, ground nuts as a core ingredient. Therefore they have a nutty flavour and a crunchy bite to them which is so addictive. And textures are an important part of my recipes.

Though friands are relatively heavier on the butter as compared to a muffin or an unfrosted cupcake, they are truly a treat. The crispy exterior and nutty buttery centre is open to many different add-ins…fruits, chocolate, coconut, nuts and so on. Any ground nut works which means you have so many permutations and combinations to choose from. For me, chocolate and hazelnut are made for each other. In this case, big chunks of chocolate melt in your month as you bite into a warm crunchy hazelnut pastry. I love to use my oval friand moulds to bake these but they result in about 6 big ones that are a bit too much for my little ones to eat. I used a regular muffin pan that yielded 10 friands.

Hazelnut and Chocolate Chunk Friands (Financiers)
Yields 10

6 egg whites
180g butter, melted and cooled
1 cup (100g) hazelnut meal
1/2 cup (75g) plain flour
1 1/2 cups icing sugar mixture
1 tsp vanilla essence
100g dark chocolate, roughly chopped into small and big chunks

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Grease or line a 12 capacity muffin pan with paper liners.
Combine the egg whites, hazelnut meal, icing sugar, flour and vanilla essence in a large bowl. Add the butter and stir to combine. Add half the chocolate chunks and stir to combine
Pour the friand mixture evenly among the prepared pans. Sprinkle the remaining chocolate chunks over each friand. Bake in preheated oven for 12-15 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the centres comes out clean. Set aside for 5 minutes before turning onto a wire rack to cool. Eat warm or at room temperature.

Apple and Maple Syrup Friands (Financiers)

17|01|2014

I did not make resolutions for the new year because somewhere along the course of the year, I feel they change for me. Perhaps the greatest lesson I have learnt over time is that with some minor adjustments, a bit of flexibility and a wee bit of make-do, life becomes a lot easier to embrace. Flexibility means along with the expected you also make room for the unexpected things in your life, both good and bad. And in doing so, you save yourself from a few let-downs and disappointments. The world becomes a happier a place to live in.

I have decided to adopt a ‘take it as it comes’ approach to both life, in general and blogging. There will be days when meringues will crack..I will not fret. I will make an Eton Mess instead. Lava cakes may turn out over-baked…I will enjoy them as puddings. If l can’t pipe pretty swirls around life, then so be it. I will learn to have fun with dollops. Dollops aren’t perfect…you can’t weigh or measure them. That’s why they are dollops and we love them.

Uh..well, think I could do with a sugar fix at the moment.

These friands are the simplest things to bake. Easy, uncomplicated and quite forgiving. Flexible, in other words.

All you need is a bowl to mix. If you do not have friand moulds (I have used oval ones), bake them in muffin pans or mini loaf pans. You can use honey or golden syrup instead of maple syrup and your own choice of fruits or berries if you like.
Try them, they taste great!

Apple and Maple Friands (Financiers)
Yields 12

1 cup almond meal (ground almonds) or any nut meal of your choice
3/4 cup plain flour, sifted
1/2 tsp baking powder
11/4 cup icing sugar
6 egg whites
125 g unsalted butter, melted
2 tbsp. maple syrup
1 cup peeled, cored and chopped apples
2 apples, cored and thinly sliced to place on top of the friand

Preheat oven to 180 degrees C. Place the almond meal, flour, baking powder, icing sugar, egg whites, butter, maple syrup and chopped apples in a bowl and whisk until combined. Divide the mixture into friand pans/friand moulds or muffin pans (till half full) Place a few sliced apples on top of each mould. Push slightly into the batter so that the apples are enclosed within the friand batter. Bake for 20–25 minutes or until the friands are golden and cooked through. Using a palette knife, loosen the edges and remove the friands from the tins immediately. Allow to cool on a wire rack before serving.