liquorice friands: made all over x london tea club
I’ve been wanting to collaborate with the London Tea Club for ages – and it’s finally happened! I met Cecelia over Instagram a few months ago and saw an instant connection. Each month Cecelia sends her subscribers a couple of new teas to discover and I thought it might be nice to include a recipe matched to one of the flavours. Luckily, she agreed with me and my first one has just been included.
For June, under the auspices of Made All Over (my fledgling side business), subscribers will be receiving Chocolate Mint tea – a delicious concoction that is extremely refreshing. For the recipe, I decided to use anise as it’s a flavour that complements both elements of the tea. Enter my liquorice friands – a light and buttery tea cake made with ground almonds and soft-eating liquorice discs.
Liquorice Friands
Ingredients
190g unsalted butter
200g icing sugar, plus extra to dust
50g plain flour
130g ground almonds
5 egg whites
150g soft eating liquorice, chopped into small discs
Makes 12
Method
1. Pre-heat your oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4 and grease and flour a 12-hole muffin tin (friands are normally oval, but the moulded tins are difficult to source in the UK and a muffin tin works just as well).
2. Melt the butter and put to one side to cool.
3. Sieve the flour and icing sugar into a bowl and stir in the ground almonds.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk the egg whites until frothy.
5. Make a well in the dry ingredients, pour butter and then the egg whites and fold the mixture carefully until combined. Don’t overwork the batter – you want to retain as much air in the eggs as possible.
6. Spoon the batter into the 12-hole tin as evenly as possible (don’t fill to more than 3/4 of the mould).
7. Sprinkle the liquorice evenly over each cake.
8. Cook in the oven for 25-30 minutes, or until gold brown and springy to the touch.
9. Cool in the tins for a few minutes then turn onto a wire rack.
10. When they’re ready to eat, dust the tops with icing sugar (optional) and serve alongside a cup of London Tea Club Chocolate Mint Tea.
The friands will keep for up to two days in an airtight plastic container.
Of course if you don’t like liquorice, you can add your own flavour to the cakes – why not try chocolate chips, raspberries or a swirl of salted caramel?
