Recipes

Plum and Pecan Friands with a Maple Glaze

/ Claire / Leave a comment

This is my first friand recipe using autumnal flavours. The plums that are in season at the moment are delicious – sweet and winey. They are great just eaten on their own and the children love eating them, but they are lovely to cook with too.

plum pecan friands

These friands are made with ground pecans rather than the usual ground almonds. My eldest son says he doesn’t like pecans (what is wrong with him?) but he liked these very much. He did remove the pecan on the top though!

The flavour of the pecans is lovely and goes so well with the cinnamon and orange zest and the seasonal fresh plums are delicious. The maple glaze is optional really, but really works well with all the flavours.

Plum Pecan friand 3

The first batch of these turned out a little wet, so after I have chopped the plums, I place them on some kitchen paper to absorb a little of the moisture. You only have to do that if the plums are extra juicy though.

Plum Pecan friand closeup

Ingredients:
6 large egg whites/250ml Two Chicks pasteurised egg whites
250g icing sugar
130g pecans + 12 extra to top each cake
100g plain/all-purpose flour – sieved with 2tsp cinnamon
Zest of an un-waxed orange
160g melted butter + extra for greasing the tin
5 small ripe plums – chopped into small pieces and placed on some kitchen paper

Maple Glaze:
½ cup sieved icing sugar
2-3tbs maple syrup – enough to thin

Method:
Preheat the oven to 180°C and brush the pan with the extra melted butter

Tip the pecans into the food processor, a coffee grinder, or I used the milling attachment on my Nutribullet and pulse the pecans until they are completely ground into crumbs. Make sure you keep agitating the nuts to keep them on the move, otherwise, as they are quite moist, you can end up with pecan butter.

Tip the egg whites into the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment and mix until broken down and frothy. Add the butter and zest and whip until fluffy.

On low speed, add the ground pecans, icing sugar, flour and cinnamon until just combined. Stir in the plums by hand.

Spoon the mixture into the prepared tin. I use an ice cream scoop to do this as I make less mess.

Plum Pecan friands closeup2

Place a pecan nut on the top of each cake and bake for 30-35 minutes or until they have risen and a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Leave to rest for at least 15 minutes before gently turning out onto a wire cooling rack. I actually left these until they were almost cool because they are quite delicate.

Leave to cool completely before making the glaze.

Plum Pecan friand closeup1

For the glaze, simply stir maple syrup into the icing sugar until you have a runny consistency and drizzle back and forth over the cooled cakes.

These are delicious served with coffee, but would be perfect for an autumn picnic too.

Baked Sour Cream Doughnuts with Pumpkin Pie Spice Sugar

/ Claire / Leave a comment

The weather has been so murky and misty lately that I decided to try out an autumn recipe early with the children who are on ‘summer’ holidays.  These are very moist, sour cream doughnuts, spiked with cinnamon and coated in pumpkin pie spice sugar.

donut tower

The doughnuts are baked rather than fried, so you don’t have to heat a vat of oil and then worry about the kitchen catching fire. Or is that just me?

I used to have a neighbour who refused to deep fry in her kitchen, due to the oily residue left behind. Her family still wanted deep fried chips, so she had her deep fat fryer installed in the garage and made them do it outside!

Anyway, no frying here, just baked delicious and gently spiced doughnuts, brushed with melted butter and coated in pumpkin pie spice sugar.

baked donuts

The doughnut moulds I used came from Amazon.  They are silicone, full sized and come in a set of three, so no waiting while one batch cools before baking off the rest.

I have used one of my disposable piping bags to pipe the batter into my doughnut moulds, but you could easily make these in a mini muffin tin too.

These are so quick and easy to make, I have also used cups here, so no weighing out either.

baked donuts1

Ingredients:
½ cup sour cream
1 extra large egg
1tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup vegetable oil + a little extra for greasing the doughnut mould
½ cup golden caster sugar
1 cup plain/all-purpose flour
1½tsp cinnamon
½tsp baking powder
½tsp baking soda
½tsp salt

Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 180ºC and prepare the doughnut moulds.  This recipe makes 8 full sized doughnuts, but if you have a mini doughnut mould, you will get more

In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, whisk together the sour cream, egg, vanilla, oil and sugar together until its light and smooth.

In another bowl, sieve the flour, baking powder, soda, salt and cinnamon together.

Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until just combined.

Transfer to a piping bag, cut off the end and pipe the batter into the prepared moulds.

Bake for 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.  Leave in the moulds to cool for 5-10 minutes while you prepare the coating.

baked donut

Pumpkin Pie Spiced Coating:
1 cup golden caster sugar
2tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
Generous knob of butter – melted and cooled

spiced sugar

Method:
Brush the doughnuts with the butter and place into the sugar.  Using your hands, completely coat the doughnut in the sugar, tapping off the excess.

baked donut closeup

Enjoy while fresh and warm!

Blueberry and Lemon Friands

/ Claire / Leave a comment

My children all love blueberries and are mad on blueberry muffins. They love friands too, so before the summer is out I decided to cook a batch of blueberry ones which went down very well indeed!

Blueberry Friands

Since getting the friand tin, I have absolutely loads of ideas for different versions of friands, including using different types of nuts, but I’m trying to space them out a bit so they don’t get bored of them.

They are just so easy to make, I have to keep trying out different recipes. So far they have all been really good. This recipe is very similar to the blackberry recipe the other week, but there are a few tweaks. I use the Two Chicks pasteurised egg whites that I buy from the chilled section in the supermarket. As you can get two batches from each carton, I tend to test out a new one with the second half. The next one will be an autumnal themed one I think…!

Blueberry Friands overhead

Ingredients:
6 large egg whites/250ml Two Chicks pasteurised egg whites
250g icing/powdered sugar, sieved
130g ground almonds
100g plain flour, sieved
Zest of one un-waxed lemon
160g melted butter + extra for buttering the pan
1 large punnet of blueberries

Preheat the oven to 180°C and brush the friand tin with melted butter

Method:
In a stand mixer, fitted with the paddle attachment, whisk the egg whites until frothy and then add the melted butter and lemon zest.

On low speed (because it goes everywhere if you don’t) add the icing sugar and fold in the flour until just combined. Add in ¾ of the blueberries, leaving some to stud the top with. Mix these in by hand as you don’t want them to break up.

Using an ice cream scoop, divide the mixture equally between a 12 hole friand pan. Place 2-3 blueberries on the top of each cake and gently press them in. They will sink into the cakes a little as they bake.

Blueberry Friands double shot

Bake for around 30 minutes, until they have risen and turned golden brown. A toothpick inserted into the centre should come out clean.

Blueberry Friand1

Leave to rest for 15 minutes before gently turning out onto a wire cooling rack and dust with icing sugar.