Carrot Cake Friands

Tiny, moist, and gluten free. These friands have a longer shelf life compared to muffins and cakes, a fresh variation on the usual plain almond or strawberry variety.

600g ground almonds

10 egg whites

250g butter

1 zest and juice of un-waxed orange

1 peeled and grated green apple

100g raisins

100g Walnut roughly crushed

3 Carrots

300g caster sugar

150ml natural yoghurt

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon vanilla

Icing:

150g mascarpone

400g icing sugar

1 teaspoon lemon juice

12 Walnut halves

Method:

In a large mixing bowl add the ground almonds, sugar, crushed walnuts, raisins, cinnamon, baking powder, peeled and finally grated carrots, evenly combine with mixing spoon. Then melt the butter and add the orange zest and juice, vanilla, yoghurt, and apple. Add the wet mixture to the dry and mix together till evenly combined.

Place the friand batter in the fridge for 8 hours or over night.

Once the batter has chilled heat oven to 160oC, grease 12 hold friand pan with spray oil or a little vegetable oil (if you don’t have a friand pan you can use a 12 hold muffin pan 3inch width and 1 inch deep) then spoon in the mixture till 3/4 level with the top of the moulds and place in oven for 30 minutes they should be a very pale golden brown on top.

Leave to cool for 10-15 minutes before removing from pan, when removing run a clean knife round the edges and they should come out clean (remove from pan while still warm not cool other wise they tend to stick).

In a mixing bowl place the mascarpone, lemon juice and icing sugar and blend together till smooth. You can either pipe the icing onto friands or spoon icing over the friands and garnish with a walnut on top of the icing. Leave the icing to set for 30 minutes before serving.
This mixture is enough for 24 friands; the batter can be stored for up to a week in an air tight container in refrigerator.