When a friend asked if she could come stay for the weekend to visit me and the city in which she went to university, of course I said a big fat yes! Instantly my brain started ticking over as to what I could bake for her knowing she has a sweet tooth and a love of all things ginger. This is what I came up with.

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It didn’t take me long to settle on the idea of a ginger friand, knowing how in our foodie group, we have an early warning system for when anyone posts a recipe with ginger in, we’ve collectively taken to tagging her in as a matter of course! Friands may be a refined muffin by another name but the elegance of their appearance is as delightful a
s their taste. They make a great gift and I seem to bake them most often when we have company over.

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As they are on the sweet end of the spectrum, I like to include something with a little tang, a soupçon of sour or a bite of bitter (like cocoa) to balance the sugary sweetness and here, I chose lemon. Zest in the batter, juice in the icing. I used a little dark brown sugar but not the muscavado type as I know Mandy feels it’s flavour takes away from her beloved ginger.

You could substitute stem ginger in place of the crystallised version I use here, weight for weight – you could even have a go at making it yourself using my recipe for it. Plus don’t forget the other friand recipes on my blog – find them here. Right, I’m off to make us some breakfast and then hopefully go have some foodie fun exploring my new home town! Enjoy! x

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Ginger Friands
Servings: 12
: 320 kcal
Author: Just Jo
Ingredients
  • 250 ml egg whites*
  • 200 g icing sugar
  • 50 g dark brown soft sugar
  • 125 g ground almonds
  • 100 g plain flour
  • 1 tbsp ground ginger rounded
  • 50 g crystallised ginger finely minced
  • Zest of one lemon
  • 160 g butter melted
For the topping
  • 3/4 cup icing sugar
  • Juice of one lemon
  • 2 tsp stem ginger syrup
Instructions
  1. Grease your friand tin with soft butter and preheat the oven to 180°C.
  2. Whisk together the icing sugar, flour, almonds and ground ginger in a big bowl.
  3. Whisk your egg whites until frothy – you don’t need soft peaks or anything like that.
  4. Fold the eggs into the dry ingredients.
  5. Add the lemon zest and 2/3 of the crystallised ginger then fold in the butter.
  6. Scoop into your prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes until risen, browned and a skewer comes out clean from the centre of a friand.
  7. Cool in the tin for 5 or 10 minutes then remove to sit on a rack to cool.
  8. Make the topping by mixing the icing sugar and ginger syrup with enough lemon juice to make a thick paste that just about runs off your spoon. Dip each friand into the icing then sit on a rack and immediately sprinkle with the reserved crystallised ginger before it sets.
  9. Note – you may use a muffin pan instead of a friand tin but you’ll probably have more mixture than you need to make twelve.
Recipe Notes

*= I use Two Chicks pasteurised egg whites for friands as you need a lot and they are excellent quality. You can substitute 6 large egg whites if you wish.

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