Mini Honey Friands.... and some chicken photos - #4 Foodbuzz 1/8/11

It's quite some time since I last made friands..... that's no mistake. Friands are very rich teacakes with copious amounts of butter and ground almonds which makes them luxurious, moist and ever so morish.

Ah - yes. That's why I haven't made them in so long. They taste SO good. One is never enough. Last time, I gave all but one of my raspberry and lemon friands away as I swear I would have eaten the lot otherwise.

This time was no different. Using a mini friand mould instead of the normal standard size 8 friand mould,  I made approx 32 mini friands from this recipe versus what would have been 10 standard size.

Lightly butter the mini friand moulds and dust with flour. Tap out any excess over the sink.

Place the moulds on top of a baking tray before filling.

Recipe

175g melted butter (I use salted)

110g icing sugar

100g of runny honey

60 g plain flour

120g ground almonds

5 egg whites

.

20 large, juicy raspberries

Sift icing sugar and flour. Add almonds and stir. Whip egg whites to break up until they start to foam, but well before they reach peaking. Add the eggs and mix. Quickly mix in warm / hot melted butter and honey.

Pour into greased and floured Friand mould.  Each cell should be approx 3/4 full. This mix is enough to make 10 standard friands or approx 32 mini friands.

Bake at 190deg C fan oven (210deg normal) for approx 12 > 15mins for mini friands and 20 > 25 mins for large until springy to the touch.

Allow to cool for a while and release from the moulds when still warm.

Well - I must admit, I would NEVER have guessed you were all so interested in chickens ! After all the responses to the chicken run photos, I thought you might like a few more....so I'll introduce a couple of the girls....whilst they are having some free ranging time.

This is FANCY PANTS. Fancy is a blue laced wyandotte. Pretty little hen. She likes looking pretty, but unfortunately she doesn't lay and never has !

This is HENRIETTA. Henrietta is a partridge cochin. Lovely hen with big fluffy bum and legs. She looks massive, but is really just a huge bundle of feathers !

Henrietta and Terminator. TERMINATOR is a blue orpington. When we first got her almost 3 years ago, she was a man eater. Would have a good go at you unprovoked ! Took her a good year to settle down. Thankfully, she has really mellowed and become a really soppy thing.

Here is Oliver helping  break collect the eggs through the pot hole in the Omlet Cube (chicken house). He loves helping collect the eggs and feed the chickens. Those eggs you can see are blue ones laid by the cream legbars (Korma, Dansak and Tikka)

Here is Oliver breaking another egg. This one was an accident. He's got a lot better over the last 2 weeks since I took this photo.... no more broken eggs. The one in the photo got "dropped" into the bowl. Oh well - at least he wanted scrambled eggs for tea !

The rest went into a fresh bowl...

erm - yes... that's another broken egg on the floor to the right of his feet from the day before. He'd decided to collect the eggs unsupervised. A couple got smashed in the garden and a couple slipped out his hands onto the kitchen floor. Thankfully, he now respects that egg collecting must be supervised and he knows he needs a bowl !

Sarah-Jane Nash - www.siliconemoulds.com - large selection of silicone bakeware moulds.