Friday, April 20, 2012

Coconut Friands - French Fridays with Dorie



As I sit down to write this post, I have a mug of hot tea, some lemon mousse and the rest of the coconut friands within reach. Can I tell you how much I loved these little teacakes?


SO GOOD!


So good that I'm surprised there are any left. 
So good that I've been hiding them and not sharing with dear ole hubs or the toddler.
So good that I ran an extra day this week.
So good that I've accepted that my diet has to wait until later.


I've been amazed at how simple these recipes have been and how delicious they are. I guess I decided to start FFwD at the right time! This week, the hardest part was getting my cookbook to stay open to the right page. I didn't even have to go shopping, as I had exactly 1 1/2 cups of unsweetened coconut in the pantry. Kismet!




I did have trouble melting the butter, of all things. Rookie mistake: I used the "Melt Butter" function on the microwave. It took about a minute at low power to make a butter volcano. Lesson learned: the microwave is not to be trusted.




After I added all the ingredients to the bowl, I had a thick batter with a satiny shine, like Dorie promised. I thought it looked just like oatmeal. Pass the brown sugar and milk!




Using a mini-muffin pan and a Pampered Chef medium (1oz) scoop, I was able to get exactly 24 mini cakes. When I popped them in the oven, they started looking like this after about 10 minutes...


Excuse the dirty oven door.
Don't they look like little fried eggs? Adorable. Actually, I'm wondering why they bubbled up only in the middle and on the sides. Oven too hot or not hot enough? Either way, they still turned out lovely. 




They were a little crispy on the browned edges, which added to the overall swoon factor of these cakes. Shortly after taking this photo, I may have eaten 7 of them. Maybe. I'll never tell.


I spent all week trying to remember what Filipino dessert they remind me of. Luckily, yummychunklet came to the rescue. The French friands are very similar to Filipino Puto, a steamed rice cake that contains coconut milk. I personally have had no luck with steaming desserts (perhaps one day I'll share the tale of the Kutsinta  fiasco) so I'm glad to have found a suitable substitute that I can make in the oven!

Check out how the others did here: Coconut Friands


The verdict: grade: A+. I'll be making this again very soon. I'd like to try some of the add-ins that Dorie suggested (fresh fruit, candied zest, preserved ginger).


Thanks for reading, and happy eats!

7 comments:

  1. Woo hoo! I'm glad I was able to help because Dorie's recipe was racking my brain as well! Ha! Your little cakes look wonderful. Definitely diet postponement worthy!

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  2. Very nice post - I enjoyed reading it. The photos are great and I really like your pretty serving plate. Glad you enjoyed them!

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  3. Your little cakes look very cute! I liked these a lot too which was a surprise for me. So fun when that happens!

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  4. Glad these were a hit - they look so cute & I am in awe that you were able to churn out an even number...

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  5. I like the fried egg look. Looks intentional even if it's not. I love your flowered plate. Very retro.

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  6. Diet, schmiet,these were too good to pass up-nice job and I too love the retro look of the plate .

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  7. Hah, love that we had deja vus with this one! Nice photos, and you'll get over the rookie mistake -- we all make them

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