Raspberry and Star Anise Friands

The recipe said 10 egg whites. Ten egg whites - what was I supposed to do with the remaining 10 yolks? Make a high cholesterol omelet?  Three jars of lemon curd? A sh*tload of mayo? I was already making a dessert so I can't save the yolks for another dessert and just the idea of these 10 egg yolks sitting in my fridge waiting to be used because they could go bad any day stressed me out too much.  I couldn't deal with 10 yolks, I've never had to deal with that many yolks.

The recipe was therefore daunting at first.  But I couldn't resist - I love star anise and berries.  And friands are so lovely and delicate.  Soft and moist, these are pink too so they're just such a gentle, dainty and cute dessert.

The icing is optional - I think it's better with. They are quite sweet, that's why they're in small portions, a few bites are enough. 

So then I halved the recipe as five egg yolks were manageable - the little things that cut down on my anxiety.  Though I don't think I was able to use them - they're sitting in a bowl in my fridge, cling filmed, but it's been a week.  I think I need to throw away the five egg yolks....

Recipe adapted from Ottolenghi
makes 10 mini loaves or probably 24 mini muffins
Ingredients
340g egg whites (10 egg whites)
100g plain flour
300g icing sugar
180g ground almonds
2 tsp star anise, finely ground
1/2 tsp salt
Grated zest of 2 lemons
220g unsalted butter, melted and left to cool, plus extra for greasing
150g raspberries, frozen are fine

Icing
70g raspberries
1/2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp lemon juice
300g icing sugar

Method
Preheat oven to 170C.


Butter mini loaf molds - or mini muffin molds. 

Whisk the egg whites in a large bowl until frothy - no more than that.   Sift the flour, sugar, ground almonds, star anise and salt into the egg whites, then add the lemon zest and melted butter and mix until the batter is just smooth and uniform.

Pour into baking tins, fill them 2/3 of the way up and drop a couple of raspberry halves into the batter.

Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a skewer comes out clean.  Let them cool a little, remove form tins and leave to cool completely.

Make the icing by mashing the raspberries with the water and lemon juice in a bowl, then pass that through a sieve, pushing the pulp against the sides.  Then whisk in the icing sugar.  It should be uniform and quite thin.  Just thick enough for you to brush it over the top of the cakes.