Almond, Blackberry and Peach Friands Recipe

Lorraine Pascale's A Lighter Way to Bake (HaperCollins, £20.00)

Ingredients

• Spray oil
• 100g icing sugar, sifted
• 75g ground almonds
• 75g wholemeal flour
• 50g self-raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• Pinch of salt
• 6 egg whites
• Seeds of 1 vanilla pod or 1 tsp
• vanilla extract
• 50g unsalted butter, melted
• 25ml vegetable oil
• 3 tinned peach halves (or 15
• tinned peach slices), drained
• and chopped into 1cm cubes
• 12 blackberries
• 2 tbsp honey

You will need:

• Friand tin or 12-hole muffin tin

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C, (Fan 160°C), 350°F, Gas Mark 4. Spray a friand tin with oil (or if you don’t have one of these, use a 12-hole muffin tin either lined with muffin cases or, again, sprayed with a little oil instead) and set aside.

2. Toss the icing sugar, ground almonds, flours, baking powder, cinnamon and salt together in a large bowl and make a well in the centre. In another bowl, whisk up the egg whites and vanilla seeds or extract until they just start to become frothy (not super white and frothy like meringue, but just like bubble bath before it starts to disappear because of the soap!) Pour this into the centre of the dry ingredients along with the butter and oil and mix everything together using as few stirs as possible. Gently fold the peach pieces through and divide the mixture evenly among the friand tin holes (or muffin cases or holes).

3. Gently push a blackberry onto the top of each friand and then pop the cakes into the oven to bake for 15–20 minutes until golden on top and a skewer inserted into the centre of one cake comes out clean. As soon as they come out of the oven, mix the honey in a small bowl with 1 tablespoon boiling water and brush this all over the tops of the friands evenly. Then leave to cool. Like so many cakes, these are SO good served warm.