Chocolate Hazelnut Friands

Chocolate Hazelnut Friands.

After having a custard experiment disaster the other day, I had an awful lot of egg whites to use up. I didn't really fancy meringues and decided that friands were on the cards, mostly due to how affordable mountains of nuts are here. I opted for a tasty nutella inspired chocolate and hazelnut concoction. Unfortunately I had to dash out to work just as they'd finished baking. I have a lack of tupperware here and they lost the fight against the open air. Still tasty though!

Ingredients:

200g ground hazelnuts

175g unsalted butter

6 egg whites

160g plain flour

2 tblsp cocoa

230g icing sugar, plus more for dusting

Method:

-preheat the oven to 200C and grease a 12 hole muffin/friand tin

- heat the butter in a small saucepan until melted. Keep an eye on it and take off the heat once it's gone nice and brown - this adds a nutty loveliness to the butter. Remove, strain for darkened milk solids and keep to the side.

- whisk the whites until frothy, not peaky, just nice and foamy. 

-sift the dry ingredients in to a large bowl and stir the nuts in. Make a well in the centre and add the egg whites and the cooled butter. Mix to combine. 

- spoon this in to the tin and bake for 25 mins, checking after 20. A skewer should come out clean. Leave to cool in the tins for a few minutes, then remove to a wire rack

- dust liberally with icing sugar and serve!#