Celia's Raspberry & Chocolate Friands

I just couldn't resist trying these friands, which I saw posted at Celia's Fig Jam and Lime Cordial, one of my favorite blogs.  It took me a few weeks to decide that I really wanted to buy that bag of almond meal at the store, but finally I broke down a bought the bag of Bob's Red Mill finely ground almond meal.  This was the only brand I found at any of the stores I checked.  It is a little pricey, but now that I've tasted these, I'm glad I made the investment.

Originally, I was going to use some older raspberries that were in my freezer, but when I pulled out the bag on Saturday and saw that they were from 2009, I decided to use the raspberries I just picked  a week ago, and had frozen.    I used Domino Confectioners Sugar, which is icing sugar mixture I guess, since it contains cornstarch, and for the chocolate I used ~80g of a Lindt Smooth Dark 70% cocoa bar.  I used my chef's knife to chop the chocolate up into maybe 1/4 inch pieces.  I sifted all of the dry ingredients, but it was hard getting alot of that almond meal to go thru the small holes, so I ended up just dumping the remaining almond meal that wouldn't sift, into the bowl with the rest.

Hubby and I had these warm off the cooling rack as we could hardly wait to try them.  They looked and smelled wonderful.  We both love dark chocolate and raspberries couldn't go better with dark chocolate.  These were a success and a bit hit here!!  We were a little surprised how heavy the friands were when you picked one up, as we expected them to be much lighter, but the taste was awesome. 

My favorite way to eat the remaining friands was to heat them up a little in the oven, just til the chocolate got hot.  Even though I didn't have them with tea, I imagine this would be the perfect pairing when the weather turns cool here in the fall.

Now I can offer people a delectable dessert from my home, that you will only find in Australian and New Zealand cafes:)  How cool!  I want to make the blueberry friands next, from the linked recipe that Celia has on her blog.  Another good sounding one to try are these Chocolate Hazelnut Friands.

So if you're like me and love to try new recipes check out Celia's Raspberry and Chocolate Friands! You'll love 'em.