Flower Friands
Recipe adapted from delicious. More Please published by ABC Books
Makes 12 friands
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1 1/3 cups/200g icing sugar
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1/2 cup/60g plain flour
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1 cup/125g almond meal, sifted
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5 egg whites (about 180g-200g)
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180g/6ozs unsalted butter, melted and cooled
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1-2 sprays of Magnolia essence (I used an iflavour spray) optional-you can use vanilla extract or another flavour if you like
Icing
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300g/10 ozs icing sugar
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Food colouring (I used yellow, pink and blue)
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Edible flowers to garnish
You will also need a friand tin and cupcake liners
Step 1 - Line a friand tray with cupcake liners which will fit the friand trays quite nicely although you can see that there were some that rippled a little with the raw batter in them but then they were fine once baked. Preheat the oven to 180c/350F. Place the sifted almond meal and flour in a bowl and mix thoroughly (I hate sifting so I just put the icing sugar through a small food processor, you can use it again for the icing later too).
Step 2 - In a bowl or a jug using a fork beat the egg whites until frothy and then fold this into the flour mixture. Then slowly fold in the butter until combined. I found this easiest to pour into the friand tin when I pour the batter back into the jug as it is quite liquid. Bake for 20-25 minutes until light golden and a skewer inserted comes out clean. Cool in the tin. If the friands are a little too high you can trim them with a sharp knife to get a flat surface to pour the icing on.
Step 3 - Sift the icing sugar again (or process again in the food processor-you can make the icing in the processor too. Just add about 3-5 tablespoons of warm water, more if necessary to achieve a liquid but viscous consistency. If you want to tint it several colour you can portion it out into bowls and tint it or you can keep them the same colour. It's up to you. Spoon a tablespoon or two of icing on top and then top with flowers and allow the icing to set fully (the icing cracks if you move these before they are set).