Cardamom Apple Crumble Friands

Well well, you get commissioned to create a recipe for the very first time and then boomski, another commission lands in your inbox almost immediately afterwards! Just Jo is one very happy blogger indeed (happy and busy – man alive have I got a ton of recipes coming to the blog over the coming weeks).

When it is a company you already know and love their produce it is an easy yes to say so when Pink Lady Apples asked me to write them a recipe, I jumped at the chance. These Cardamom Apple Crumble Friands are what I came up with.

I love a Pink Lady pomme and they are Hungry Hubby’s favourite eating apple too. I use them in baking as they soften very well and are sweet enough to mean you can restrict added sugar if you like. When eating them as they are, they have just the right amount of tang and a really fresh and crisp texture (which is missing from say, Royal Gala unless you get them very, very fresh indeed).

The thing which I really love (and caused me to take all too many photographs of the apples themselves!) is the stunningly beautiful pink colouration of their skin, with flashes of bright spring green, either in blocks of solid colour or in really beautiful stripes. I could look at their variegated, practically neon colours all day.

I wanted to showcase the beautiful pink skins in my recipe so placed some finely sliced, quarter circles of apple on top of each friand. Friands are tasty little cakes made with ground almonds, whipped egg whites and icing sugar. They have a fine crumb texture and adding little chunks of Pink Lady makes them extra moist as they seem to completely melt into the cake on baking.

Having recently been really pleased with using cardamom in the place of cinnamon in my Cinnabons, I wanted to pair it with apples and I’m glad to say it works beautifully. The flavour of cardamom is hard to describe but it is perfumed, a little mellow, a little husky or even musky to my palate and it works extremely well in sweet bakes especially if there is a buttery, oaty crumble to boot.

Altogether, these Cardamom Apple Crumble Friands are the perfect autumnal tea time treat. If you don’t have a friand pan, use a muffin tin and reduce the cooking time down a couple of minutes.

I was compensated with ingredient vouchers to create this recipe but I am a big fan of Pink Lady apples as you can see from the recipes I’ve already created (linked below). I hope you enjoy these friands!

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Cardamom Apple Crumble Friands

An autumnal tea cake treat. A toothsome little friand flavoured with cardamom and little nuggets of Pink Lady apple topped with an oaty crumble and extra apple slices.

: 3460 kcal

Author: Just Jo

Ingredients

For the friands

• 1 tsp green cardamom pods
• 250 g egg whites*
• 200 g icing sugar
• 125 g ground almonds
• 100 g plain flour
• 160 g melted butter
• 1 large Pink Lady apple

For the crumble

• 1 tbsp butter
• 2 tbsp plain flour
• 1 tbsp rolled oats not instant
• 1 tbsp light muscovado sugar

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 180˚C and grease your friand tin well - I use an oil spray. If you don't have one, use a muffin pan instead (and you will end up with 12 friands this size).
2. Place the whole cardamom pods in a mortar and pestle and give them a bash to loosen the skins. Discard the skins and grind the seeds to a fine powder. Put aside for now.
3. Make the crumble - mash the butter and plain flour together in a small bowl, until you get a porridge-like texture. Stir in the oats, sugar and a pinch of the cardamom. Put aside for now.
4. Place the egg whites in a large bowl and quickly whisk until fluffy and then stop - you don't need to whisk to soft peaks so this takes no time at all.
5. Sift over the icing sugar, ground almonds, plain flour and the rest of the cardamom then fold them in with the melted butter.
6. Now wash the apple, slice in half and remove the core leaving as much apple in tact as possible. Finely dice half of the apple then add to the bowl of the friand mixture. Use an ice cream scoop to divide the mixture between 10 of the wells in the friand pan (or all 12 if using a muffin pan).
7. With remaining half of the apple, cut it in half once again and then slice it as finely as you possible can. You need 30 quarter circle shaped pieces of apple (like in the photos) to top the friands. Take 3 slices and lay, overlapping each other down one half of the friand.
8. Sprinkle the remaining half with the crumble mixture.
9. Bake for 25-30 minutes until risen, the crumble golden, the apples slightly dried out but still soft and a skewer comes out clean from the centre of the cake.
10. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes before removing - I use a thin, flexible plastic picnic knife to loosen them but they using take very little persuasion to leave the tin.
11. Can be served still warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight tin if not eating immediately.

Recipe Notes

*= I really like Two Chicks pasteurised, free range egg whites in a carton. You can freeze the leftovers for macarons or more friands and they always whip up very well indeed.

This post contains affiliate links, meaning I will earn a little commission if you chose to buy items I’ve advertised, helping me to bring you all these recipes for free!

Like this post? Then why not try these related recipes:

Clementine Apple Tart

The Apple Chapel Cake

Cinnamon Apple Cheesecake Tarts