Friday, April 20, 2012

coconut friands - French Fridays w/ Dorie


Awesome, but when I ate the one little scrap that broke off of a "cakelette", the first thing I thought was, "coconut macaroon!". That's just what these are like. The only difference between these Friands and a traditional Macaroon is the flour and butter, which does affect the density/texture.

Dorie's recipe says to whisk in each ingredient, one at a time. I whisked the egg whites, no problem. I then tried to whisk in the coconut and immediately realized I'd have to change to another "whisking" implement.
coconut in the egg whites

finished "batter"

This was much too thick to mix in with anything but a spoon or spatula, so I switched to a spatula and had a much more pleasant time of things. Then in went the sugar, flour, vanilla, salt, and then the whole stick of melted butter. I did put the whole thing in and will probably put in less next time. I haven't eaten one yet, so maybe it is necessary, but there was so much butter oozing out of the cakes when I pulled them from the oven, I can't imagine it is. Will be interested to hear what other FFWD members say about it.

I topped each with a thin slice of strawberry before baking. I was planning on using fresh blackberries and raspberries but didn't buy them in time.
I have a feeling this is another recipe that I'll be making again. They were so easy and look so beautiful and elegant. I've seen other people's friands around the web and want to use different shapes for the molds next time. They'd make a lovely platter on a buffet.

5 comments:

Bubbe said...

These look great. I'm so glad you're doing Dorrie's Fridays, because I never would just go through the book and pick out different recipes.I will make these soon.
Love you, Mom

Cher Rockwell said...

They really look pretty with the strawberry on top. Nice job!

Elaine said...

I love how they look with the slice of strawberry, Laurie. I thought the same thing about the butter, but I do think all of it is necessary because these were so delicious. I just made sure I mixed the butter in completely before baking. I agree with you that I will be baking these again and again and trying them with different fruit and chocolate.

Betsy said...

The strawberry slice looks really pretty on top. I skipped because I don't care for shredded coconut, but I look forward to playing with the financiers when they come up in the rotation. Though I wouldn't eat them, your friands do look delicious.

laurcl said...

Thanks everyone. I ended up making these again today. The coconut wasn't as finely flaked as the first batch and I cut the butter down to 1/2 stick. I also put a big blackberry on the top of them. The texture was completely different and I'm not sure if it was because of the coconut or the butter. I'm going to try the original coconut but still keep the 1/2 stick of butter.