Otto’lego’hi Raspberry & Hazelnut Friands
One of my goals is to cook my way through the cookbooks of my food idol – Yotam Ottolenghi. George has begrudgingly obliged to be my own personal Masterchef judge as I start with ‘Plenty More‘.
Friand is French for ‘dainty’ or ‘gourmet’ – both words that were obviously not considered when I incorporated Lego moulds into the baking. Mass-marketing and capitalism for the win!
(NB: Mr Ottolenghi’s original recipe called for Blackcurrants & Pistachios instead of Raspberries & Hazelnuts, but I forgot while being distracted by 25kg bags of Halloween candy at the supermarket so I improvised…)
(Makes 8 – 10 friands)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup melted butter
- 1/2 cup plain flour
- 60g blanched almonds
- 50g hazelnuts
- 1 cup fresh or frozen raspberries
- 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 200g caster sugar
- Zest of 1 lemon
- 1 tbsp mashed banana (I suggest using the rest of the banana by dipping it in Nutella. #cleaneating)
- 3 egg whites
- 1/2 tsp salt
- Butter/cooking spray
Method
- Preheat over to 200C
- Grease muffin tin/moulds with cooking spray or butter.
- Place almonds & hazelnuts, flour, cinnamon and caster sugar (NB: Keep 2 tbsp of the sugar) into food processor.
- Blend until a breadcrumb-like consistency.
- In a separate mixing bowl, tip in the nut-flour mixture.
- Add melted butter, lemon zest & banana. Stir to combine.
- Whisk egg whites with 1/2 tsp salt & the 2 tbsp sugar until whites form soft peaks.
- Gently fold a third of the egg whites into the nut mixture.
- Once incorporated fold in another third, along with the raspberries. Then fold in remaining third of egg whites.
- Pour batter into muffin tin/moulds – filling only 2/3 (The mixture will rise. It’ll be
- Place in over for 20 – 25 minutes.
- Remove from oven, leave to cool.
Ice-Ice-Baby: Lemon Glaze!
- Mix 200g icing sugar & 50ml lemon juice. Drizzle the icing over the friends, sprinkling with berries & crushed nuts.
Other Toppings If Y’All are Lazy
- Dust with Icing Sugar and top with fresh berries & crushed hazelnuts
- Use the egg yolks to make custard, and enjoy while the friands are still warm (They barely made it out of the moulds before George decapitated the Lego man..)
