Saturday, December 10, 2011

Mandarin Friands

Marta from Mangiare è un po'come viaggiare is hosting both the English and Italian versions of Weekend Herb Blogging and this week I'll be using Afourer Mandarins.

afourer mandarin© by Haalo



Afourer Mandarins (also known as W. Murcott or Nadorcott) originally hail from Morocco - they started to sporatically appear at the markets over the last couple of years but this year they seem to be in plentiful supply. They are delightfully sweet and juicy and predominately, seedless. Apparently they can have seeds but I'm yet to find one that does. The skin is very thin which makes it a little harder to peel, but the taste more than makes up for any effort.

The dish I'm making is influenced by those delicious whole orange cakes. With a thin skin and their seedlessness, boiling them and then pureeing them to a pulp is easy work. I've then twisted this a little and used this puree to make a friand. Texturally, those whole orange cakes and friands are quite similar and as it turned out, equally delicious!

mandarin and hazelnut friands© by Haalo


Mandarin Friands

3 Afourer Mandarins
150 grams almond meal
50 grams rice flour
150 grams icing sugar
3 egg whites, whisked until soft peak
150 grams butter, melted and cooled


Place the mandarins into a saucepan, just large enough to hold them snuggly. Generously cover with water and bring to a gentle simmer - cover and let them bubble away until very soft. When they look like the skins are about the crack, carefully remove them from the pan and let them cool. They will need to be cold before you proceed.

Place the cooked mandarins into a processor or blender and blitz until smooth - you don't want it perfectly smooth, you want to see flecks of rind in the mix.

Place the almond meal into a clean bowl. Sift in the rice flour and icing sugar and give it a good stir. Form a well in the center and pour in the melted butter followed by the mandarin puree. Stir it well. Take a large spoonful of the whisked egg white and stir it through the mixture to slacken it then carefully add the rest of the eggwhite and fold it gently through.

Scoop the batter out into the friand cases - if you don't have friand cases, small muffin or cupcake cases will do fine.

Bake in a preheated 170°C oven until cooked through - about 20 to 30 minutes. Let them cool slightly before removing from the cases.

3 comments

  1. Oh My! these are lovely and so tempting! Bookmarked.

    ReplyDelete
  2. A very interesting recipe, Haalo. I noted that is also gluten-free. I like the speckled look of the little cakes.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I love these oranges but I have come across a few with seeds (don't like).

    ReplyDelete

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