I had six egg whites from making lemon curd to use up so I decided to make my delicious friands but wanted to try a completely different flavour! So I decided on ginger and I used ground ginger and stem ginger.
I love the little bits chewy of stem ginger in these delicate cakes. I made them and they were delicious but I felt there was something missing! I remember making a ginger loaf cake at school and the recipe had sultanas in it and it was really good so I decided this was the addition I needed and it really worked well.
Friands are small almond based cakes using egg whites as the only raising agent. The texture is quite unusual and not what you may expect. They very moist but not light and fluffy like a cupcake. A friand should be rich and more dense in texture.
I have made mine in a traditional oval friand tray but this is not necessary you can make them in a deep muffin tray instead.
They are perfect for an afternoon tea and are asking for a big dollop of cream!
Start by pre-heating the oven to 170 degrees centigrade (150 degrees fan).
Spray or brush cake release into the individual sections of a friand tin or deep muffin tin. The tin I'm using is a MasterClass 12 Hole Friand Pan available on Amazon
Melt the butter in a pan or microwave and set aside to cool.
Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk until they start to go frothy. They do not want to be whisked to stiff peaks. This could easily be done with a hand whisk in a bowl too.
Add the flour, sieved icing sugar, ground ginger, stem ginger, ground almonds, sultanas and melted butter and fold in gently keeping as much air in the egg whites as you can.
Divide the mixture between the 12 sections in the friand or muffin tin.
Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly.
Leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin before trying to remove then leave to cool completely on a cooling rack before dusting with sieved icing sugar to finish.
Ginger Friands
Sarah’s servings: 12
Sarah’s Skill: Easy
Baking time: 30 minutes
Ingredients:
175g Unsalted Butter
6 Large Egg Whites
90g Plain Flour
225g Sieved Icing Sugar
1 Tbsp Ground Ginger
1 Ball Stem Ginger (chopped)
125g Ground Almonds
100g Sultanas
1 Tbsp Sieved icing sugar (optional)
Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees centigrade (150 degrees fan) Gas mark 3.
Spray or brush cake release into the individual sections of a friand tin or deep muffin tin.
Melt the butter in a pan or microwave and set aside to cool.
Put the egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk until they start to go frothy. They do not want to be whisked to stiff peaks. This could easily be done with a hand whisk in a bowl too.
Add the flour, sieved icing sugar, ground ginger, stem ginger, ground almonds, sultanas and melted butter and fold in gently keeping as much air in the egg whites as you can.
Divide the mixture between the 12 sections in the friand or muffin tin.
Bake for 30 minutes or until a skewer comes out cleanly.
Leave to cool for 10 minutes in the tin before trying to remove them.
Leave to cool completely on a cooling rack, then dust with sieved icing sugar to finish.
Sarah’s extra slice……..
To use up the egg yolks you could make a fruit curd or custard.