Ginger and lemon friands

March 3rd, 2018

As you'll probably know if you have any friends in the UK, over the last few days we've had snow. Snow in places and quantities that don't usually get snow. Yesterday it was bitterly cold and coming down pretty much all day, leaving an even blanket this morning.

Now, our house is magnificently insulated. In our previous house winter was freezing, we'd have to run the heating constantly and still have a sleeping bag piled over the winter duvets, wearing gloves to keep hands flexible enough to type. In this house, unless the wind is howling we sleep with the bedroom window open and we haven't even put the winter duvets on the bed. It's comfy. It means that now when we look at charming character properties in estate agent windows we just give a shudder and think of the energy bill. We're finding the mod cons of insulation and double glazing to be, well, convenient.

Makes 12. One had already been snaffled for science

What I am saying is I didn't really have to bake. It's not like I wanted to run the oven to help heat the kitchen, or that we needed the extra calories for warmth. But I had eggwhites and we weren't leaving the house, so I spent a few quiet minutes pottering in the kitchen.

Ginger and lemon friands (makes 12)

85g plain flour
250g icing sugar
100g ground almonds
1tsp ground ginger
Grated zest of a lemon
45g blanched almonds
85g crystallised ginger
7 eggwhites (210g liquid eggwhite)
190g melted butter

Preheat the oven to 180C (fan). Use a little of the melted butter to grease the friand tins.

Sift the flour and icing sugar into a bowl and add the ground almonds, ground ginger and lemon zest. Either finely chop or pulse together in a small processor the blanched almonds and crystallised ginger. Not to a paste, but to a crumb. Mix that through the other dry ingredients. Whip the eggwhites with a fork until frothy and fold in with the melted butter. It takes quite a bit of folding to convince the butter to play nicely.

Divide the mixture between the tins - for 12 friand tins it comes up about 2/3 of the way.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce temperature to 160C and bake for another 10 minutes. This initial high heat (in my old oven I did it at 210C but this oven - again a mod con - is much more efficient) gives the characteristic central cracked dome.

Cool for a couple of minutes before turning onto a wire rack. Will keep a week if you let them.