With friands like these…
Oh, silly me, I forgot to mention something. As reader Joy observes:
I learned something new today! Financiers are the little cakes I make to use up the leftover egg whites after I have made my weekly batch of mayo! I know them as Friands and bake them in a special muffin tin with oval holes. I like to add lemon zest to the cake recipe and drop two or three raspberries or blueberries on to each one before baking! They don’t last long in our house!
Joy lives in Leicestershire, England, but readers in New Zealand and Australia also probably know these cakes as “friands.” And indeed when a financier goes by the name “friand”, it generally has a little extra something added into it, like whole berries, chocolate pieces or nuts. Sorry about the omission, gang!
It’s also worth pointing out here that there is such a food item as a “friand” in the French-speaking world, but the term applies to what we in the States would call a “pig in a blanket”, which is to say a sausage wrapped in dough. The key question now is: do the French also have the word “pig in a blanket” and what could that possibly refer to? We could go round and round like this for hours.
A friand aux amandes, however, appears to be very similar to a financier. Some recipes use egg whites, others use whole eggs.
I wonder if they are originally French, or if they have been borrowed from us? You would think it would be unlikely for an English or antipodean person to just invent something and call it a friand.
http://www.marmiton.org/recettes/recette_friand-aux-amandes_35873.aspx
http://www.cuisineaz.com/recettes/friands-aux-amandes-11563.aspx
http://www.lacuisinefacile.com/dessert/friand-aux-amandes/
The also have “friands aux fromage” which are cheese puff sort of things.
Wikipedia seems to be the source for the “pigs in blankets” definition of a friand; French dictionaries mostly have it as meaning amateur, amoureux, gourmand and other suchlike words (French meanings of, i.e. “fond” in English), but some also have it as a small minced (ground) meat pie – not precisely a pig-in-blanket. What we in NZ would call a mince savoury.
Hm…interesting. Thanks Bronwyn, I’ll have fun fiddling with those recipes!
– Joe
no the french don’t but they do have escargo in the blanket.very nice website
Ha! Thanks Alan!
– Joe