Raspberry and Lemon Friands

The first time I heard the word 'friand', I thought someone must have spelled 'Friend' wrongly. Then I realised it was the name of a kind of cake. A lot of people I have spoken to have never heard of friands, so I turned to trusty Wikipedia for a bit of history. They are French cakes, and friand means 'dainty'. I love that this cake is named after a description of what it is like.

I hadn't eaten a friand for many, many years, then a very good friend of mine baked some, and I knew that I had to make some for my almond loving husband. I don't tend to like the flavour of almonds much, but they absolutely work in this recipe. If you would like to watch a video demonstration of these being made, you can see a lovely lady called Kristy Lee making them over on her YouTube Channel. I'll write the recipe here too, to save you scrolling through the video.

Raspberry & Lemon Friands (makes 12 - 15)
225g icing sugar (confectioner's sugar)
200g unsalted butter
75g plain flour
150g ground almonds
6 egg whites
zest of one lemon
approx 30 raspberries (frozen is fine)
flaked almonds to sprinkle on top

1) Pre-heat the oven to 180C (fan) / gas mark 4. Melt the butter and transfer to a bowl to cool.
2) Sift the icing sugar and flour into a large mixing bowl.
3) Add the ground almonds to the flour & icing sugar, along with the lemon zest.
4) In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites into soft peaks.
5) Add the whisked egg whites to the bowl with the flour mixture, along with the cooled, melted butter. Gently fold together using a rubber spatula, ensuring that you scrape the bottom of the bowl so that no flour gets left behind!
6) Grease a muffin tray or two with butter then pour the batter into each hole, about three quarters full. These rise quite a lot when baking, so you don't want too much mixture in each hole, otherwise they are fairly tricky to get out of the muffin tray.
7) Gently push two raspberries into each friand, then scatter a few flaked almonds over the top.
8) Bake for 15 - 20 mins / until golden brown. (I removed mine after 18 mins but every oven bakes slightly differently.)
9) Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the pan for approximately 10 minutes. Run a palette knife or a very small rubber spatula around the rim of each friand and gently prise out of the muffin tin. Place on a cooling rack, or eat immediately!