Mastering Madeleines

You might have thought that I would have made my first batch of madeleines ages ago, but you would have been wrong. While I love eating them (especially at Café les Baux) it just never occurred to me to make them myself. I have this prejudice against single-use cookware and if there was ever a single-use item, it’s a madeline pan. However, I capitulated and bought one and finally tried it out the other day (on a very tough crowd). This is from Food and Wine via Daniel Boulud and made about 15 large ones:

• 1 teaspoon  baking powder
• ½  teaspoon  kosher salt
• ¾ cup all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 2  large eggs
• 1/3  cup sugar
• 1  tablespoon  light brown sugar
• 1  tablespoon  honey
• 2  teaspoons  finely grated lemon or orange zest
• 6  tablespoons  (¾ stick) unsalted butter, melted, warm
• Nonstick vegetable oil spray
• Powdered sugar and or melted semi-sweet chocolate for dipping

Whisk baking powder, salt, and flour in a small bowl.

Whisk eggs, granulated sugar, light brown sugar, honey and lemon zest in a medium bowl until smooth. Whisk in dry ingredients until just incorporated, then whisk in melted butter until smooth. Transfer batter to a pastry bag or Ziplock bag and chill at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 400°. Lightly coat madeleine pans with nonstick vegetable oil spray and dust with flour, tapping out excess. Snip end off pastry bag (or 1 corner of resealable bag) and pipe batter into each mold, filling two-thirds full (you may have a little batter left over).

Bake madeleines until edges are golden brown and centers are puffed and lightly spring back when gently pressed, about 5 minutes for mini and 8-10 minutes for regular cakes. Dust with powdered sugar, if you’d like, and serve warm with the chocolate sauce for dipping and enjoy!

My verdict: Definitely going on the dessert roster and I may even buy another pan! These were soft, golden and delicious, but somehow lacked the nice crunchy edges that the ones at les Baux have. I’m not sure if it’s a size thing, or just a matter of the recipe (more butter??). They were gone in a matter of minutes (and as I said in the intro, it was a tough crowd!). For the chocolate dipping sauce, I just took a small handful of chocolate chips and melted them in 30 second increments in the microwave. I thought about adding a little butter or heavy cream or even liqueur to it, but was feeling lazy (and no one complained). Ice cream, fresh berries would all be nice with them, but they’re good enough to stand on their own. The pan I bought was a silicone one and it was great. Nothing stuck and it went into the dishwasher and came out spotless. I may even let another one that makes smaller madeleine’s take up room in my kitchen.