Raspberry Friands

Another article has arrived, another year has passed. Happy New Year everyone!
It's meant to be posted a while back..hehe
Such a long time since last post.

These months I have been baking several stuff after the broken oven's fixed,
mostly been doing things I'm quite familar with. For some reasons I've got no luck
and results kept being unsatisfactory. Got to give something else another go.

I got this recipe from a friend on Christmas Day when she invited me for Christmas dinner.
Interesting that people actally the Christmas lunch 'dinner' when it's actually started at 2pm.

Anyways, she got this recipe from I-forgot-which magazine, and the recipe page was torn directly from the meg on the shop's shelf...which I still found very unbelievable that she didn't get caught
or sent to the police.. Jenessa you're hilarious...am thinking of you now, hehe

I first ate a friand few years ago from a famous pastry shop. It was very nice, but expensive.
(Just saw people selling them at Lantern Festival 2013 for $4.5 each...goodness!)
According to the internet, friands (don't even know how to pronounce it) are famous
in OZ and NZ, but they firstly seem to be related to Financier. How surprise.
I've heard of Financier but never know they're similar in a way. Traditional financier
might seem a bit plain, but friands can be modified in many ways to suit everyone's
tast bud.

Ok, enough talking. Let's get started. Here's the recipe.

Makes around 12-14.

You need:
Cooking oil spray
8 egg whites
250g unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 and half cups of icing sugar
2/3 cup plain flour
1 1/3 cups almond meal
2 tsp finely grated lemon rind
1 cup frozen raspberries , thawed (I used less)

Method

1. Generously spray a 12-hole friand pan (half cup capacity) with cooking oil.

       Haven't got oil spray at home. Used brush instead. Sprinkle a bit of the flour can
       help remove the friands later.

2. Whisk egg whites in a large bowl until just frothy. (Here I whisked a bit longer until
    it formed soft peaks).

 
        Add butter, icing sugar, flour, almond meal and lemon rind. Stir until smooth but
        don't overstir I think.

                                     
 Divide the mixture among prepared pan holes. Top with berries.        

 

       


3. Cook in a moderate oven (180 degrees) for about 25 minutes or unitl golden and
cooked when tested. Stand for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cook.
Serve warm.

rising rising rising !

 

Hello friand babies!

 

      
           The first fresh batch tastes quite almondish and quite crunchy too. Not a too sweet  
           recipe but some people might need to modify a bit more.
           The other interesting discovery was they actually tasted a lot better when chilled...
           yum yum.
          

           Now try it yourself! Happy baking everyone!

Dim sum lunch at Red Bowl Restaurant

Hehehe...finally get this started!

This is my first time 'officially' writing down personal opinions about
food, obviously my very top hobby. Hopefully I could share some
interesting thoughts and flavours...merely opinions, but I guess it'd
be fun!

Well well, how should we start?
Originally I was thinking to write every time when I use an entertainment
book voucher and visit a restaurant. It'll be good at the end of the
year to see I've visited so many different places tasted different stuff..(and
spent the $$..) Anyways. 
Then I realised I could also put food I make and show off some
of the yummy tastes invented at home..of course they must be nice!

Let's save the words and see what we have today.


It's Red Bowl, a Chinese restaurant quite near Riccarton mall.

I've been there once but only had dinner.
Today was there for yum cha (aka dim sum) at lunch time.


The very first thing was the fried eggplant with a bit mince in the middle.
Sounds like eggplant oreo...hahaha

The eggplant was soft with the deep fried batter. Tastes quite good, not as
good as I had last time actually. I felt the oil for deep fry wasn't very fresh,
resulting an interesting taste in the eggplant. The eggplant skin was a but
hard. Presentation was great though.

We finished that one quite quickly and comes the next. Prawn dumplings.
Crispy prawns inside, the size was smaller compared with other restaurants.
Just like one-bite dumpling.

Then comes the next dish. We started to realise that this restaurant
serves smaller size than others. The deep fried pork crescent. 
This kind of dumpling is made from sticky rice, maybe with wee sugar
mixed to balance the flavour. Inside was some mince.

I was curious with the appearance of it. I thought it will be golden,
very full and round when they are fried. These one seem a bit skinny. LOL

Then we had some chicken feet which is something that will always scare
my homestay *giggle*
This was bit spicy, with the soy sauce as its base.

The beef shin tendons. Usually I ordered this because it's hard to cook
at home. Takes forever to get it cooked thoroughly, but I love them
when they're tender. Soft and 'sticky'!
But unfortunately this one wasn't very impressive. Didn't taste anything
other than garlic. And it's not cooked in soy sauce. Taste like curry too.

The 'Spinach Dumplings' came next. But something wrong was sent to us..I think they're the coriander dumplings?

Then it's the last dish...whoa..I'm a tired actually :P

This one, well, was really not so good. The pork ribs seemed not processed properly so they still contained some weired flavour..was a bit unpleasant. Plus the rice vermicelli was in good shape but didn't stay in good shape once they're touched...they became mashy.

General dining experience was ok. But don't know when will return again.

See you next time! :)