Feijoa season is in full swing and, in addition to just snacking on them daily, I've been trying to use some of them up in baking as well.

I've already made two huge apple-feijoa crumbles. They're great as a quick and easy dessert to use up large quantities of feijoa pulp. But I also didn't want to end up just making crumbles forever. So I went poking around the Internet looking for other recipe ideas. And boy-oh-boy, do I have a lot now! It was hard to decide where to start!

In the end, I opted for a feijoa custard tart. Mostly because Reiver really likes custard, so I figured that might be an agreeable way to use up a few feijoas.

The custard recipe called for egg yolks. I was going to just swap out the yolks for whole eggs, soas not to end up with surplus whites kicking around. But then I saw the note at the bottom suggesting that you use the surplus whites to make these chocloate-feijoa friands.

So, on the one hand, that meant committing to making two desserts tonight. But, on the other hand, it would neatly use up all of the eggs and let me use even more feijoas! And neither recipe looked terribly difficult or complicated to put together, so I figured I'd just go for it and make both of 'em.

I haven't had a chance to try the pie yet, but these friands were incredible! I wasn't entirely sold on chocolate friands. Classic friands are so good as is, I felt like adding chocolate and fruit could only possibly detract from them. But this combination really works! It's definitely quite different from a standard friand, but, I would argue, equally as good.

Chocolate-Feijoa Friands

Slightly adapted from NZ Woman's Weekly

Ingredients

• 5 large egg whites
• 120g ground almonds (almond flour/meal)
• 195g icing (powdered/confectioners') sugar
• 1/2 c. soft (plain/standard/cake) or gluten-free flour
• 20g cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 200g butter, melted
• 9 small feijoas, halved and scooped

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 160°C (325°F) and grease a muffin tin (or two)¹.
2. Beat the egg whites slightly to break them up. (No need to beat until stiff; slightly foamy is fine.)
3. In a separate bowl, combine the almonds, sugar, and flour.
4. Sift in the cocoa and baking powder and mix well.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the egg whites and stir to mix.
6. Pour in the melted butter and stir until just combined.
7. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin tins. Don't fill them too full; ~2/3 full is plenty!
8. Press a feijoa half into the top of each friand.
9. Bake at 160°C (325°F) for 20-25 minutes.
10. Turn out onto wire rack to cool.

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¹ The recipe claims that this makes 12 friands, but I actually got 18 using standard 5-cm diameter muffin tins. Obviously the exact number you get will depend on the size of your tins and how full you fill them. I felt like 18 was pretty much perfect though. ^Back