Written by Annalisa
These are particularly good to make if, like me, you make lots of ice cream (which uses egg yolks) as you end up with lots of egg whites. You can freeze the egg whites until you need them and then use them to make these dense little almond cakes.

These make 12 friands. If you have it, use a friand tray, if not a muffin tray is absolutely fine. I use a mini muffin tin and I get 36 out of this mixture; this means you can seem to eat more as they’re so little and it also makes them the perfect size for children.

185g unsalted butter
6 egg whites
225g icing sugar (don’t be tempted to cut this down)
75g plain flour
125g ground almonds
1 unwaxed lemon, zest of, finely grated.

Preheat the oven to 200C and place a flat baking tray in. It’s important the oven is well up to temperature before putting these in.

Melt the butter in a sauce pan, then take off the heat and with a pastry brush, coat the inside of the bun tray holes lightly. This bit is really important to give you a lovely crisp outside.

Put the butter to cool completely. This bit is important too. I’m often in a rush so I place the pan in cold water.

Get a big bowl and whisk the egg whites until they are foamy, there’s no need to make them soft peak, just foamy is fine. On top of this sift (very important to sift) the icing sugar and flour. Then sprinkle on the ground almonds and the zest. Finally add the butter and at that point, mix all together gently. You want it to be all well incorporated but don’t beat the life out of it. If you want or need to, you can leave the mixture like this for a few hours at room temperature or in the fridge for a day or so, just mix before hand.

Get a spoon and fill each muffin hole three quarters full as these friands rise.

Place in oven on baking tray. Cook for 15 mins if using mini muffin tray, 20-22 if a big one. The edges should be brown, which means you’ll have a lovely soft middle and crispy outside.

Leave to cool for five mins then use a sharp knife to ease out. They should come out really easily, if not you may need to trace around the edge more persistently with a knife.