Plum, blackberry and bay friand bake

Name: Plum, blackberry and bay friand bake
Cuisine: European, American
Ingredients: 200g blackberries; 4 ripe plums, stones removed, cut into 1cm wide wedges (360g); 1 tsp vanilla extract; 60g caster sugar; 3 fresh bay leaves; 1 tsp ground cinnamon; 60g plain flour; 200g icing sugar, sifted; 120g ground almonds; 1/8 tsp salt; 150g egg whites (from 4-5 large eggs); 180g unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Instructions

Friands are the light, moist almond cakes popular in Australia, New Zealand and France. Whisked egg whites and very little flour make them wonderfully light, and the ground almonds make them really moist. Traditionally they’re small cakes, but here we tip the batter into a baking dish and cook it whole. You can make the batter well in advance here, if you want to get ahead, it keeps well in the fridge up to a day, but don’t macerate the fruit for this amount of time as it will become too juicy. Serve with custard, vanilla ice cream or cream. The fruit can be played around with, depending on the season. Raspberries and peaches can be used in the early summer months, for example.

Updated at: Wed, 17 Dec 2025 05:57:24 GMT