These lovely Friands (small dainty cakes) are packed with heart-healthy nuts, juicy blueberries, zesty lemon, and banana. They'll delight anyone with “a sweet tooth in need of some royal treatment” as Ottolenghi says. 

Friands can be compared to muffins, but their texture is not muffin-like at all. They are more tender and moist. Where a muffin is light and airy, friands are rich and dense (more resembling a texture of a good Carrot cake)

I followed Otto’s recipe from his Plenty More cookbook, but reduced the sugar and added egg yolks in (just because I had no other plans for them that eve and didn't want them to go to waste)

Ingredients 12 muffins:

125g soft butter (optional replace with coco butter)

3 egg yolks (optional)

60g flour (spelt or wheat)

1 tsp baking powder

120g roughly chopped nuts (cashews, almonds, pistachios or a mix)

½ tsp. cinnamon

1 ripe mashed banana

120g brown sugar

grated zest of 1 lemon

3 egg whites + a pinch of salt + 2 tbsp sugar (vegan option: replace egg-whites with about 100g aquafaba (=chickpea water from the tin)

120g frozen berries, defrosted (I used blue berries but every other berry will work, also fresh apples/pairs cut into ½ cm cubes)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200C (Fan 180C)

Put 12 paper muffin cups into the muffin trays.

1. In a bowl, mix the butter and sugar for about 1 minute

2. Add the egg yolks one by one while mixing (if using)

3. Mix baking powder with the flour and add to the mix, stir in and then add all other ingredients (nuts, cinnamon, mashed banana, lemon zest)  and mix briefly.

4. In another (fat free) narrow bowl, add the three egg whites, a pinch of salt and 2 Tbsp. sugar and mix for about 5 minutes until the whites form soft peaks.

5.Then gently fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the dough, followed by the berries and then gently fold the rest of the egg whites in. You want to keep as much air in the dough as possible.

6. Pour or spoon the batter into the muffin tins, so that they are about 2/3 full.

7.Bake for about 20-25 mins, until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean.

Let cool.

Sprinkle some powder sugar and a few chopped pistachio nuts over the Friands and enjoy them with some yoghurt and left over berries!

Boil the kettle, ring the bell, sit back & enjoy some royal tea and cakes!