Coconut Friands or Friendly Little Coconut Cakes

I don't know why I ended up with a huge bag of dried coconut in my pantry but that's one of the reasons I made these delicate melt in your mouth French style mini cakes called coconut friands, the auto correct keeps changing the word friands to friends so I'm going to try and write this post without typing friends or friands, there it goes again!  The other reason I baked these little coconut cakes is that a friend of mine gave me a couple of those cool silicone baking molds and I was curious to give them a try, at long last!-I've only had them in my pantry for about 4 years.  She gave me two different shapes, the one I used for these mini coconut cakes and the other shape is a little pyramid that I think would be good for small chocolate cakes.  Maybe in another 4 years I'll give the other shape a try,  just being honest but I know that sounds bad.  The truth is that the older you get the more stuff you acquire and it kind of backs up, not as bad as I've seen on on a certain TV show that is pretty depressing to watch but all the same when you like to cook both the gadgets and ingredients in the pantry can build up in the kitchen.  It's not always easy to lighten your load, sometimes you have to make tough decisions about what stays and what goes.  There's always that thought that someday you might need one of those handy objects or unusual ingredients that you've got squirreled away but I've noticed that most likely if you haven't used something in a year you won't ever use it.
Writing about stuff, I should also mention that I found 4 place settings of the vintage silverware in the above photo on a shelf in my garage that I completely forgot about!  It was in a jar and almost completely black so I polished it up and thought, maybe I should look on ebay for more of this pattern, it's so sweet with that spray of flowers on the handles.  But I won't and I'm making a promise to myself to use the small pyramid shaped silicone molds this year and finish off that bag of coconut in the very near future!

Ingredients & Directions for Friendly Little Coconut Cakes
Adapted from Around My French Table by Dorie Greenspan


4 large egg whites, at room temperature
1&1/2 cups shredded unsweetened dried coconut
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1/2 cup or 1 stick unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled

Preheat the oven to 350°F
Spray 2- 9 mini fluted cup silicone molds

In a large bowl whisk the egg whites until foamy, stir in the remaining ingredients one at a time and gently beat into a thick shiny batter.  At this point the batter can be saved for several days in the refrigerator
before baking off the cakes.  Spoon the batter into the prepared molds until just below the top.  Place the 2 filled molds together on a baking sheet.  Bake for about 20-24 minutes.  They are done when slightly browned and spring back when touched.  A toothpick inserted in the cakes should come out clean.  The cakes should pop right out of the molds and be cooled on a metal rack.  The top of the cake which will become the bottom can be trimmed so the cake stands up evenly when served.  Dust with powdered sugar if you like.

I don't normally post recipes from Around My French Table but this recipe is on blogs all over the web so I decided that I would rather pass it on here where I can write the instructions myself.  I did slightly adapt it by using the silicone molds instead of the original mini muffin pans called for in this recipe.

Makes 18 little coconut cakes