Archive for the 'Baking' Category
This post, that is. Since I’m away for the weekend (sort of), this post comes to you courtesy of yesterday 
Since I blogged about making friands, lots of people are stumbling across my blog while out Googling for friand recipes. So especially for you friand fiends (okay, and for me), I’ve been hunting down some more recipes. Here’s a few you may like to try:
Raspberry surprise and Green tea Chocolate surprise friands
Orange and poppyseed friands
Fruity friands (for Em, who asked about a gluten free recipe)
Chocolate and Raspberry friands.
Interestingly, when I went seeking friand recipes, I noticed that they seem to be a bit of an Australian obsession. Even, I would say, a Melbourne obsession. Do you think this is related to this city’s ongoing love affair with good food, and of café food in particular?
I bought myself a new friand pan recently. Here’s the recipe I’ll be breaking it in with:
Chocolate and Pecan Friands
190 g (6½ oz) unsalted butter
100 g (3½ oz) ground almonds
6 egg whites
75 g (3 oz) plain flour
3 tablespoons chopped peans
3 tablespoons chocolate chips
115 g (4 oz) caster sugar
icing sugar for dusting
Preheat the oven to 175°C (350°F/ Gas mark 4). Lightly grease 12 small friand tins. Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes until very hot. Remove from heat, cool for five minutes. Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add lightly beaten egg whites and stir until just combined. Stir in melted butter. Pour mixture evenly into prepared pans so they are two thirds full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden and firm to touch. Remove tins from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Turn friands out onto a rack and cool completely. Serve dusted with icing sugar. Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.
(from 500 cupcakes & muffins, Connolly, F. New Burlington Books. © Quintet Publishing Limited. Directions modified for clarity)
Now go forth and bake!
October 21 2006 | Baking | 2 Comments »
How can this be? I actually have time to myself in the middle of the day! Niamh is sleeping (she has unfortunately caught the Cold that begat the Croup, thanks to small-boy-kisses). Finn, who is much, much better, is reading in his bedroom - occasionally calling out to find out what P-R-O-B-E spells, or A-M-A-L-G-A-M! (After the first, I was puzzled, after the second I figured out he was reading ‘Emma goes to the dentist’).
So anyway, I’m frogging. Well, before I was blogging, I was frogging. I decided (after you all said I should ) to stick with the ‘Fantasy Blues’ border on ‘You Were Hatched’, but I’m definitely ditching the metallic backstitching it calls for - that just looks right out of place to me, so I’ll just backstitch the border and eyes with dark blue floss instead. Sometime this weekend (I hope), I’ll be posting a happy dance.
When Niamh wakes up, we’re off to buy flour to make playdough. And more friands. Let me tell you about friands. They are the Best. Things. Ever! Even for my baking-challenged self, these are fail proof. They are 100% delicious, if not more. Here’s the recipe I found on the back of my icing sugar packet - we have since experimented with Raspberry friands from another recipe, but I liked these ones the best. I might try lime zest in today’s batch though. Yum.
I’m too lazy to imperialize the measurements - and besides, Metric rulz! 
Orange Almond Friands
150g butter
100g almond meal
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1/3 cup plain flour, sifted
5 egg whites
grated rind of 2 oranges
Preheat oven to 200°C. Lightly grease 12 (1/3 cup capacity) muffin pans*.
Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes until very hot. Remove from heat, cool for five minutes.
Combine almond meal, icing mix and flour in a large bowl. Add lightly beaten egg whites and orange rind and mix gently to combine. Stir in melted butter.
Pour mixture evenly into prepared pans so they are two thirds full. Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden and firm to touch.
Serve warm or cold.
*If you want to be a cool kid, you can buy friand pans - café friands are usually oval in shape. But muffin pans work just fine, truly.
August 04 2006 | Baking and Family and The Kids | 4 Comments »
This post is dedicated to all the ezBoard readers who are feeling out of touch. I thought of you today as I baked biscuits with my son (that would be ‘cookies’ to most of you!) I thought of you because:
a) when I opened the drawer where my baking paper is kept, I saw all the bits and pieces sitting neatly in zip-lock baggies, and
b) when I reached for the dessicated coconut, it was nicely labelled with a black-on-clear PTouch label.
Both of these organizational wonders are a direct result of me hanging out in the stitching boards… so thankyou… I think 
Anyway, the ANZAC biscuits came out great, so if you’re looking for something to do while your favourite board is still chewing up and spitting out your posts, may I suggest:
- Ingredients
- 1 cup plain flour
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 3/4 cup desiccated coconut
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 125g butter
- 2 tbsp golden syrup
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 3 tbsp boiling water
- Method
- Combine sifted flour, oats, coconut and sugar in a bowl. Melt butter and Golden Syrup in a saucepan over low heat. Dissolve baking soda in boiling water, then add to the butter and Golden Syrup. Stir this into oats mixture mix well. Spoon tablespoons of mix onto a tray lined with baking paper. Leave plenty of space to allow for spreading. Bake at 150C for 12-15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool on a wire rack. Enjoy!
Not as good as Tim Tams, I grant you, but fabulous anyway. Still in search of something to do? Go check out Browse Happy. Then go stitch
June 02 2005 | Baking | 3 Comments »