Well! Hello again people!
How are we all? Good I hope. Have any of you eaten anything particularly delicious today? Or any other day? Do please tell me so that I can compete/daydream/drool a little. Mmmmmmm, food!
So! Still in Auckland. What a day!
I don't want to boast, but I have actually faced numerous perils today. Including, but not limited to nearly falling in Aunty's pool (twice! Just sayin') and touching weed-killer (surpisingly painful); and it is only now, at 6pm ish, that slightly grubby nutritionist gets to sit down with the Poodle and a glass of what is quite possibly strawberry liquer* (suggestions for how to spell this are welcome) and de-stress from the suburban safari.
Tonight, I am going to share with you a rather special little thingy, which I have only recently been introduced to; the Friand. Hurrah! They will soon become your favourite things as well.
These are my little friandies, just after extraction from the muffin cups. NOTE: not as pixellated in real life.
Friands (and, as I'm sure you're aware, I do say this word in a rather sangre-froid french sort of way; but if you are not up to this, just pronounce it how you will. I will only laugh at you if I overhear you, and, unless baking as a conversational topic gets about a billion times more popular over the next month, I most probably won't) are amazing. They are similar in appearance to little muffins, but substantially quite different.
Muffins, as I'm sure all my little nutritionettes are well aware, are basically butter, flour, eggs, and baking powder, plus delicious extras. Like a slightly less rich cake batter. Friands, on the other hand, are just sugar, egg whites, and a minuscule amount of flour. Instead of the baking powder as the rising agent, it is egg white, just like in pavlova and meringues, but, because it is combined with flour, it doesn't have a gooey texture, just a delicious soft light sweet inside. So many adjectives.
Friands are super easy to make, as long as you do NOT overmix! Foolish people. And be gentle with the batter as if it was the crying child of an extremely large and angry man. This recipe I have adapted from a cute BBC one** (ergo, the queen most probably made them), and takes about an hour of faffing around from start to in your mouth. Obviously if you are quite shit at cooking they will take longer. Also, if you are like me and chronically unable to measure anything it may take slightly longer as you panickedly attempt to stem lemon zesting-related blood flow from going over everything with one hand and pick bits of eggshell out of your life with the other.
These are cute friands as they sit in the oven. They rise quite a lot then fall slightly as soon as you take them out. Not pictured: mess.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RECIPE!
The Queen's Friands
Makes 12
50g flour
200g icing sugar
120g ground almonds (can substitute other ground nuts or finely chopped coconut thread if suitably desperate)
150g butter
6 egg whites
3 lemons (you will only use the skin)
optional: berries to decorate
- Heat oven to 200 C.
- Grease 12 muffin pottles.
- Melt the butter and let it cool a bit (or it will accidentally cook your egg whites later. Fail).
- Mix almonds, icing sugar and flour (it's better if you sieve it all, but if you don't, probably nothing will happen, so don't stress.)
- Beat egg whites until they form soft peaks (i.e. almost stand up when you try make little towers with them like you used to with bubble baths, but the tips just fold over.)
- Make a well in the centre of dry things. Put in egg whites and zest of all three lemons (if you don't have a zester, grate the skins. If you don't have a grater, just peel the lemons and chop the skin into tiny bits. You povo.)
- Pour in slightly cooled butter and gently fold all the ingredients together. This is quite important to do right, but don't freak out! Just do big folds, quite slowly, using a spatula or flat wooden spoon. You are trying to keep your egg whites as fluffy as possible.
- When everything is JUST combined, place scoops of mixture in muffin cuppies. Mixture should be quite wet and fluffy. Don't let it go higher than edges of cups cos it will rise during cooking.
- Decorate with berries if you so desire.
- Put in oven for 15-20 mins or until golden brown and tops are JUST feeling firm to the touch. Do NOT stick a knife in to check! They are not muffins, they are delicate and sensitive.
- They can be tricky to get out. Make sure you have greased the trays well! Haha too late now! Try slicing around edge with a knife very gently, then scooping even more gently with a spatula.
EAT THEM!
Good with tea. Or coffee. Or probably beer, I don't know. I am drinking strawberry fizzy something and they are bloody good with that!
Enjoy!
This is a terrible picture of me gently massaging friand batter. So gentle! See the lovely egg white maintaining its... dimensions? Foaminess? Not squashedness? That.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right so, good luck my little friends! Just you wait. You will fall in love.
Okies... I am off to make dunner. Favourite Aunty is back and we are making (read: she is making and I will be scurrying and chopping things) roast lamb and leek and cauliflower gratin. Yum. Few things in this world are better than friands, but I think roast lamb is most definitely one of them.
Ummmm to look forward to... I go to somewhere in the Waikato to go for a run. Will I get lost? Probably. Will I eat a pie? Possibly? Will I hideously embarrass Cute Girlfriend in front of farmers? Most definitely.
Get cooking!
I adore you all
(especially you, Meg).
Ruby
PS give me ideas, women! Give me inspiration. I want to cook something weird. Challenge me to a souffle or something! Or all you gluten-free weirdos out there; what would you most like me to make once again edible to you sad people?
*I have just been informed they are "wild alpine mountain strawberries from Europe". Indeed.
**http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2114/blueberry-and--lemon-friands
How are we all? Good I hope. Have any of you eaten anything particularly delicious today? Or any other day? Do please tell me so that I can compete/daydream/drool a little. Mmmmmmm, food!
So! Still in Auckland. What a day!
I don't want to boast, but I have actually faced numerous perils today. Including, but not limited to nearly falling in Aunty's pool (twice! Just sayin') and touching weed-killer (surpisingly painful); and it is only now, at 6pm ish, that slightly grubby nutritionist gets to sit down with the Poodle and a glass of what is quite possibly strawberry liquer* (suggestions for how to spell this are welcome) and de-stress from the suburban safari.
Tonight, I am going to share with you a rather special little thingy, which I have only recently been introduced to; the Friand. Hurrah! They will soon become your favourite things as well.
Friands (and, as I'm sure you're aware, I do say this word in a rather sangre-froid french sort of way; but if you are not up to this, just pronounce it how you will. I will only laugh at you if I overhear you, and, unless baking as a conversational topic gets about a billion times more popular over the next month, I most probably won't) are amazing. They are similar in appearance to little muffins, but substantially quite different.
Muffins, as I'm sure all my little nutritionettes are well aware, are basically butter, flour, eggs, and baking powder, plus delicious extras. Like a slightly less rich cake batter. Friands, on the other hand, are just sugar, egg whites, and a minuscule amount of flour. Instead of the baking powder as the rising agent, it is egg white, just like in pavlova and meringues, but, because it is combined with flour, it doesn't have a gooey texture, just a delicious soft light sweet inside. So many adjectives.
Friands are super easy to make, as long as you do NOT overmix! Foolish people. And be gentle with the batter as if it was the crying child of an extremely large and angry man. This recipe I have adapted from a cute BBC one** (ergo, the queen most probably made them), and takes about an hour of faffing around from start to in your mouth. Obviously if you are quite shit at cooking they will take longer. Also, if you are like me and chronically unable to measure anything it may take slightly longer as you panickedly attempt to stem lemon zesting-related blood flow from going over everything with one hand and pick bits of eggshell out of your life with the other.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE RECIPE!
The Queen's Friands
Makes 12
50g flour
200g icing sugar
120g ground almonds (can substitute other ground nuts or finely chopped coconut thread if suitably desperate)
150g butter
6 egg whites
3 lemons (you will only use the skin)
optional: berries to decorate
- Heat oven to 200 C.
- Grease 12 muffin pottles.
- Melt the butter and let it cool a bit (or it will accidentally cook your egg whites later. Fail).
- Mix almonds, icing sugar and flour (it's better if you sieve it all, but if you don't, probably nothing will happen, so don't stress.)
- Beat egg whites until they form soft peaks (i.e. almost stand up when you try make little towers with them like you used to with bubble baths, but the tips just fold over.)
- Make a well in the centre of dry things. Put in egg whites and zest of all three lemons (if you don't have a zester, grate the skins. If you don't have a grater, just peel the lemons and chop the skin into tiny bits. You povo.)
- Pour in slightly cooled butter and gently fold all the ingredients together. This is quite important to do right, but don't freak out! Just do big folds, quite slowly, using a spatula or flat wooden spoon. You are trying to keep your egg whites as fluffy as possible.
- When everything is JUST combined, place scoops of mixture in muffin cuppies. Mixture should be quite wet and fluffy. Don't let it go higher than edges of cups cos it will rise during cooking.
- Decorate with berries if you so desire.
- Put in oven for 15-20 mins or until golden brown and tops are JUST feeling firm to the touch. Do NOT stick a knife in to check! They are not muffins, they are delicate and sensitive.
- They can be tricky to get out. Make sure you have greased the trays well! Haha too late now! Try slicing around edge with a knife very gently, then scooping even more gently with a spatula.
EAT THEM!
Good with tea. Or coffee. Or probably beer, I don't know. I am drinking strawberry fizzy something and they are bloody good with that!
Enjoy!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Right so, good luck my little friends! Just you wait. You will fall in love.
Okies... I am off to make dunner. Favourite Aunty is back and we are making (read: she is making and I will be scurrying and chopping things) roast lamb and leek and cauliflower gratin. Yum. Few things in this world are better than friands, but I think roast lamb is most definitely one of them.
Ummmm to look forward to... I go to somewhere in the Waikato to go for a run. Will I get lost? Probably. Will I eat a pie? Possibly? Will I hideously embarrass Cute Girlfriend in front of farmers? Most definitely.
Get cooking!
I adore you all
(especially you, Meg).
Ruby
PS give me ideas, women! Give me inspiration. I want to cook something weird. Challenge me to a souffle or something! Or all you gluten-free weirdos out there; what would you most like me to make once again edible to you sad people?
*I have just been informed they are "wild alpine mountain strawberries from Europe". Indeed.
**http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/2114/blueberry-and--lemon-friands
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