Raspberry and Orange Gluten Free Friands

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Goodness me, is $5.50 each too much to pay for a small gluten free friand? That's what our local department store cafe was charging when I was there with friends recently. 

The poor little plain orange friands looked a bit on the dry side; it got me thinking about why are gluten free cafe cakes always so dry, hard and often lacking in flavour? 

With only 1/3 to 1/2 cup of flour per recipe friands must be one of the easiest recipes to convert to gluten free. I tested the following gluten free friand conversion out on friends and family this week, concentrating on "moistness" and packing with flavour. Everyone loved them... hope you do too :)

Raspberry and Orange Gluten Free Friands

greased oval friand tin or muffin tin (1/2 cup 125ml capacity)

preheat oven to 200c (392F) or 180c (356F) fan forced

Ingredients

6 egg whites

185g butter melted and cooled

1 tbl orange juice

1 cup almond meal (almond flour) 

1 1/2 cups (240g) sifted pure icing sugar (confectioners, make sure it's pure with no flour added)

1/2 cup gluten free plain flour (gluten free all purpose) 

4 teaspoons fine orange zest

1 cup of raspberries, fresh or frozen

Topping

1/2 cup toasted slivered almonds

* optional .... 1/4 cup freeze dried raspberry pieces

1 cup of sifted pure icing sugar 

1 to 2 tablespoons of orange juice

Method

Put the egg whites in a medium bowl in a medium bowl, use a fork to lightly whisk and break up the whites. Add the butter, zest, almond meal, sifted icing sugar, juice and *berries; stir until the mixture is combined. 

Divide the mix between the 12 hole pan. Bake 18-22 minutes, don't over bake. Allow to cool 5 minutes in pan before removing cakes and transferring to a cooling rack. 

adapted from AWW lemon and cranberry friands

Icing

In a small bowl, add one tablespoon of orange juice to sifted icing sugar. Stir until smooth, add more juice if needed to created a drizzle over consistency. 

Drizzle over icing and top with toasted almond slivers and freeze dried raspberry pieces.

                         moist and flavourful 

Notes:

*if using frozen berries don't defrost first, stir through in their frozen state

*if you can source freeze dried raspberry pieces they do add a natural flavour punch; the pieces will loose their crispness after a short while however they still will taste wonderful.

*undecorated friands freeze well wrapped for three weeks, defrost in the refrigerator before decorating.

*friand tins are easily available in Australia, mine is a Wiltshire tin from the supermarket. Cute Mini friands  silicone moulds are available on Amazon..they really are "mini" about 3 teaspoons of batter per hole.

 Happy Baking :)

Need to use your left over egg yolks? How about a batch of pastry cream to fill tarts, pastries and cakes.

Or an easy Hollandaise sauce.