I have two sources of inspiration for this recipe. The first is 15 year old Conor McLean who beat me to win Britain’s Best Dish. He made a fantastic vanilla friand dessert and during the process, I realised that I had never made one. The second inspiration is The Flavour Thesaurus by Nikki Segnit. This book gave me the idea for my dessert on Britain’s Best Dish. I love it. Literally weeks before it was released, I was wishing that I could have a book that would tell me what flavours go together. Then, voila, it appeared.

The complete idea for my dessert was lime friand with lemon and ginger sorbet, candied ginger and a tuille biscuit. In reality, making such a dish for two people isn’t really worth it but its an idea that i’ll hold onto for future dinner parties!

I started making the elements of the dessert about a month ago. First was the candied ginger, then the lemon and ginger sorbet. I never got around to making the friand, much to my boyfriends annoyance – he has asked me at least twice a week over the last month where his friand is. I couldn’t make any more excuses so I set to work in the kitchen and I’m so glad to say that it was easier and took less time than expected. It was one of the best things I have baked in a long time!

Unfortunately, I didn’t store the candied ginger in a good enough air tight container so I had to throw it away and I didn’t make the tuille biscuit. But, the friand and sorbet dessert was a delicious end to dinner.

Lime friand

Ingredients (Makes 6)

2 egg whites
60g butter, melted
65g ground almond
40g icing sugar
20g plain flour
1 tsp lime zest
1 tsp lime juice
6 blanched almonds

Method

Pre heat the oven to 200 degrees and grease a small cupcake pan

1. Whisk the egg whites until slightly stiff and foamy
2. Add melted butter and ground almonds
Sift the icing sugar and flour into the bowl, add the lime juice and zest and mix until just combined
3. Pour the mixture into the moulds and place an almond on the top of each cake
4. Bake in the oven for 15 minutes, or until the top has browned. Make sure that a skewer comes out clean when inserted