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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Sift over the icing sugar, ground almonds, plain flour and the rest of the cardamom then fold them in with the melted butter.
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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).
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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.
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Sprinkle the remaining half with the crumble mixture.
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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.
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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.
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Can be served still warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight tin if not eating immediately.