Strawberry, pistachio and orange cakes

These little cakes are, to me, essentially friands – ground nuts + egg whites + melted butter – but my favorite magazine website calls them cakes, so cakes they are. :)

They turned out really good – tender and moist – and the roasted strawberries are delicious: I used to say that apples and bananas can benefit (a lot) from some time in the oven and now I have to add strawberries to that list.

Strawberry, pistachio and orange cakes
adapted from Australian Gourmet Traveller

Roasted strawberries with orange blossom:
300g strawberries, hulled and quartered
½ cup (50g) caster sugar
finely grated zest and juice of 1 orange
1 tablespoon orange blossom water

Cakes:
6 egg whites
¾ cup + 1 tablespoon (184g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 ¾ cups (245g) icing sugar, sifted
150g unsalted pistachios, lightly toasted and finely ground
¾ cup (105g) all purpose flour, sifted
finely grated zest of 1 orange

Preheat oven to 180°C/350°F; butter six deep 10cm loose-bottomed flan pans.
For roasted strawberries, combine ingredients in a baking dish, cover with foil and roast in oven for 10 minutes or until tender. Cool and reserve cooking juices.
Whisk egg whites in a bowl until frothy, add melted butter and whisk to combine, add icing sugar, ground pistachios, flour and zest and stir to combine.
Spoon mixture into prepared pans and arrange 3-4 pieces of strawberry on top of each.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until golden and a skewer inserted in the center withdraws clean.
Stand in pans for 5 minutes then carefully unmold onto a wire rack.
Serve warm, drizzled with the reserved juices (they taste delicious at room temperature as well).

Makes 6 – I halved the recipe, used shallow 9cm tartlet pans and got 7 cakes