Berry Friands

This recipe is why I love to spend copious amounts of my not-so-plentiful spare time baking. These friands are beyond heavenly, and they are joyful to make. Moderately complicated while not too technical, time-consuming but able to be done in stages... all resulting in a product that is gorgeous in appearance and taste. What is a friand, you might ask? A little french cake, made with almond flour, egg whites and confectioners sugar. This recipe out of Ottolenghi's cookbook of desserts is original in its spices and its garnish. The original recipe called for star anise but I didn't even bother to try to find that it in any of our tiny local grocery stores. Instead I used Chinese Five Spice, which I had on hand, because the main spice in Chinese Five Spice is star anise. But please use star anise if you have it, or if you happen to live in a place with adequate grocery stores and specialty shops, go buy it. In a pinch, I feel that cardamon would also have been a good substitute, but perhaps only use 1 tsp.


Other than spice-sourcing, the only other difficulty I encountered with the original recipe (which led to some modification in my version written below) is that Ottolenghi and Goh instruct you to brown the butter until nutty. Even though I have browned butter in the past, on this occasion my butter was exploding! Like, bam! butter all over the stovetop... two seconds later... bam! butter all over my shirt. So I decided to cut my losses (and my cleaning up) by only cooking the butter for 2 minutes instead of as instructed. Further research has illuminated that I should have been stirring constantly and this wouldn't have happened... I will write the recipe below as I made it, not as Ottolenghi does, but if you like the brown butter taste, then please, brown your butter! I felt like the brown butter may have distracted from the wonderful play between the spice and the berry, but perhaps not. I think this means I have to make them again soon, just to be sure.


One more thing... next time I make these, I will most certainly double the recipe. These beauties are too delicious and too gorgeous to not give out as little surprise gifts to whomever may be stopping by, and the 12 this recipe make are easily consumed by my crew itself in a few days. It will be lovely next time to have spare friands to dole out. Playdate drop-off? Here's a mini-cake! Mail lady? Mini-cake! Preschool teachers? Have a friand! What a wonderful way to spread joy.

Berry Friands

adapted from "Sweet" by Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh

Wash the berries before starting the recipe and lay them out on a clean dishtowel to dry. Berries should be completely dry before using them. Blueberries could also be used. 

Also please SIFT the flour, almond flour, and confectioners sugar together with a flour sifter. Don't be tempted to just whisk it all, this is an occasion where the tedium of the flour sifter is necessary. For the icing, if you have fresh, un-chunky confectioners sugar, then don't bother with the sifter.

for friands:
180 g (3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp) butter, plus 1 tbsp (15 g) melted butter for brushing tins
60 g (1/2 cup) all-purpose flour (or all-purpose GF flour), plus extra for dusting tins
200 g (1 2/3 cup) confectioner's sugar
120 g (1 1/4 cup) almond meal
1 1/2 tsp chinese five-spice (or ground star anise)
1/4 tsp salt
150 g egg whites (4 large egg whites)
finely grated zest of 1 small orange (about 1 tsp)
18 fresh and dry blackberries, cut in half lengthwise, or 36 small fresh and dry raspberries

for optional but highly recommended icing:
55 g (2 oz) fresh blackberries
12-24 individual blackberries or raspberries for garnish
3/4 tbsp water
1 tsp lemon juice
160 g (1 1/3 cup) confectioners' sugar

Brush 12 muffin tins or oval molds with the melted butter. Dust with flour, and ensure you have a good coating. Tap out excess flour. Place in the fridge to chill.

Preheat oven to 425. Place the butter in a medium saucepan and cook over medium-low heat until melted. Continue to cook until butter is foaming and solids have formed at the bottom of the pan, about 2 minutes. Pour through a fine-mesh sieve. Allow to cool to warm before adding to the egg white mixture in a few steps. (If too hot, it will cook the egg whites, however it can't be too cooled off or you won't be able to mix it in.)

While butter is cooling, sift the flour, almond flour, confectioners sugar, spice and salt into a bowl. Place egg whites in a small bowl and whisk them to a very slight froth (they do not need to be whisked completely, just for a few seconds.) Pour the egg whites into the sifted dry ingredients and stir until they are incorporated. Add the orange zest and melted butter and mix until the batter is smooth.

Remove muffin pan from fridge and spoon batter into prepared molds 2/3 of the way up the sides of each mold. Place 3 halved blackberries (or 3 whole raspberries) on top, cut side down. Bake for 10 minutes. Lower oven to 400, rotate the pan, and cook for another 8 minutes, or until the edges are crisp golden brown and the tops spring back lightly when touched in the center. Set aside on a rack to cool completely before unmolding.

To make icing, place the 55 g (2 oz) of blackberries in a small bowl with the water and lemon juice. Use a fork to mash them together well, then press the mixture through a fine mesh seive, pressing hard to extract as much juice as possible. Sift the confectioners sugar into a medium bowl, pour in the blackberry juice and combine to make a beautiful lilac-hued icing.


Unmold the cooled cakes onto a rack (using a plate will cause the icing to pool around the edges.) Spoon icing over the cakes. (Use less than you think you need for each one, to ensure that you have enough icing to go around.) Immediately place two berries on top of each cake for decoration. Allow 30 minutes for the icing to set before moving or serving the friands. Best eaten the day they are made. If you refrigerate them, allow them to come to room temperature before serving.

Easy, Peasy Dairy-Free Chocolate Pudding!

I have always loved chocolate pudding. When I was a kid I would just beg my mom in the grocery store to buy the little individual SnackPack puddings in the refrigerated section to put in my backpack for school... Please! Please! Pleaaaaaaaeeeeaase? My mom was not one to give in to pleading, and religiously denied all SnackPack requests. But the two of us did make chocolate pudding from the little Jell-O packs together - baking of any sort, and particularly the chocolate sort, was always an encouraged activity. (The extent to which I love a certain type of food can be determined by whether I will eat said type of food in it's most processed form.... Although it makes me more than slightly ashamed to say so - I STILL love Jell-O chocolate pudding.) When I went to visit my grandparents' house in New Jersey we would make chocolate pudding from scratch, although my grandmother called it custard. Milk, cream, eggs, chocolate. It was like an alchemy lab how it all managed to come together in a silky cold chocolaty dream at the end. As a teenager and an adult I continued to make pudding with eggs. Now pudding made with eggs can be tricky. It can end badly. The pudding recipe I present to you now will not end up badly. There are NO EGGS! Can you imagine? Just cornstarch to thicken your pudding up to beautiful silky bliss. And even better then no eggs, there is NO MILK! Or at least, no cows milk. I am not dairy-intolerant, but I have made this same pudding recipe both with milk and cream and with oatmilk and I can honestly say I much prefer the version made with oatmilk. It tastes cleaner, brighter and more chocolaty. Now go on and make a batch. Pleaaaaase? You won't regret it.



Oatmilk Chocolate Pudding

I found this recipe via the NYTimes; they had adapted Alice Medrich's cow-milk and cream based one by merely substituting oatmilk for the milk and cream, and omitting the rum (bad omission, that.) 

If you are using chocolate with a cocoa content of 70% or higher then use just 3 ounces, not 4 ounces. And remember the chocolate you use will determine the taste of the pudding, so make sure you use one you love. I made this most recently with Tollhouse Chocolate Chips.... a low-brow chocolate it may be, but a pudding divine it did make. 


1/3 cup (65 grams) sugar
1/3 cup (30 grams) natural unsweetened cocoa powder (not dutch-processed)
2 tablespoons conrstarch
1/8 tsp salt
2 cups (480 ml) good quality oatmilk (I prefer Oatly brand)
4 ounces (115 grams) semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped, or chips (see note above)
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp rum (optional)

Have 8 small ramekins, or one large cereal bowl ready on the counter.

Place the sugar, cocoa powder, cornstarch and salt in a large saucepan and whisk until thoroughly combined. Add 1/4 cup of the oatmilk slowly and whisk until you have a smooth chocolate paste. Then slowly whisk in the remainder of the oatmilk.

Put the pan on the burner and turn the heat to medium and STIR CONSTANTLY with a wooden spoon - scraping the bottoms and sides of the pan with your spoon - until the pudding is thickened, bubbly at the edges, and coats the back of the spoon, which should take about 5-7 minutes. Turn heat off and stir in the chopped chocolate vigorously, until all pieces or chips are melted and pudding is smooth. Remove pan from stovetop and pour into ramekins or bowl. Refrigerate until ready to eat. If you don't like skins on your pudding then press plastic wrap firmly to the top of each pudding before putting in the frig. I am on Alice's team for this one - I like the skin. But to each her chocolatey own. Top with whipped cream and raspberries to make this a fancy dessert. (No one but you need know this humble dessert is this easy to make!)

Coconut Chocolate Yogurt Cake (Gluten Free)

There's a trend that's gaining traction this "Resolution" season that I both admire and cannot do. And that is Dry January. It's not that I'm not all for taking a month break from alcohol. It's just.... in January?? We are talking about the coldest, darkest, most dreary month of the entire year. And you want me to stop drinking? I really don't think so. January is too damn dark and cold to be sober for. (Instead, I'm all in for a Sober October!)

However, I have read some convincing news outlet pieces about the benefits of not drinking so I will try to cut back - a bit - this month. In one rather odd essay I read in a national parenting magazine, an author advocated for smoking weed in order to help cut back on drinking. (I kid you not.) In the vein of that very alarming logic, I'll advocate for my own advice to help you drink less..... Eat cake!!!!



To help you with your resolutions, here is a glorious healthy-ish cake that you can savor instead of your second glass of pinot. There's yogurt in it too... so obviously it's healthy. 

I concocted this recipe back in 2018 when I was newly gluten-free. I cannot remember which original recipe it was based upon, although I'm fairly certain it was a french-american blogger who used wheat flour and melted butter. You can easily make this dairy-free by using a coconut yogurt or a nut-milk yogurt, just make sure you use one without sugar. This cake is best eaten the day it is made. It is great with afternoon tea! (Is anyone doing a caffeine-free January? Now that is one thing I definitely could NOT do.)






Coconut Chocolate Yogurt Cake (Gluten Free)

Make sure all your ingredients, including the yogurt and the eggs, are at room temperature before you begin. To measure out the coconut oil, place glass jar of oil in the microwave until it is melted, and then measure out 1/3 cup of the melted oil. Of course, if you live in very warm place, your jar of coconut oil will already be melted from the get-go.... lucky you.

1 cup (98 g) almond meal flour
1 cup (152 g) buckwheat flour
1/3 cup (38 g) dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup (226 g) whole-milk plain yogurt
3/4 cup (165 g) sugar
2 large eggs
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
1/2 cup (118 g) unsweetened applesauce
1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Grease an 8-inch or 9-inch round cake pan and line the bottom with parchment, or use a reusable silicone liner. Grease the parchment or liner.

Whisk dry ingredients (minus sugar) together in one large bowl. Whisk wet ingredients (and sugar) together in another medium bowl. Dump wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir together until completely blended.

Spread batter evenly into prepared pan. Bake for 20-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out with moist crumbs. Let cool in pan on a rack for ten minutes before carefully inverting onto a cake stand or plate. Frost with coconut whipped cream or simply sift confectioner's sugar on top.