Hojicha Madeleines
An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott
Preparation time: 30 minutes plus 2 hours or overnight resting time
Cooking time: 13 minutes
- 115g/1 stick butter plus 1 tablespoon extra to butter the mold
- 2/3 cup superfine or caster sugar
- 1 cup cake flour plus a bit extra to flour the mold
- Pinch salt
- 2 tablespoons hojicha powder
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1 tablespoon milk
For chocolate dip
- 150g/5ozs. white or dark chocolate
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil
- 2 tablespoons black sesame seeds
You will need hojicha powder, not fresh leaves to get the desired flavour for this. You can find it at larger Asian grocery stores or you can easily buy the powder online.
Step 1 - Heat the butter in a saucepan on medium to high heat until it smells nutty and becomes foamy. Remove from heat and measure out 115g of butter and cool (I place it in the fridge for 15 minutes).
Step 2 - Whisk the sugar, flour, salt and hojicha powder together until there are no white streaks. Then whisk the eggs and milk and add this to the dry mix along with half of the cooled butter. Add the remaining butter and mix until combined. It will become a stiffish dough. Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours or preferably overnight. You can use the mixture after 1 hour but it may not develop the desirable "bump" in the typical madeleine.
Step 3 - Preheat the oven to 220C/428F. While it is cooling brush the extra butter in the madeleine mold (this makes enough for 18 madeleines so you can grease two trays if you have them). Refrigerate the mold for a few minutes and then re-brush again with more butter. Then lightly sieve a bit of flour over the butter and then tap away any excess flour (you don't want flour showing in the madeleine pattern). Keep the greased tray in the fridge until you need it.
Step 4 - Take out tablespoons of dough-it will be stiff and won't naturally fill the pan but that's ok, just spread it with your fingers. Bake for 11-13 minutes. Cool in the tin for 5 minutes and then gently slide out of the tin.
Step 5 - Have a parchment line tray ready. Melt the white chocolate with the coconut oil and mix with the hojicha until well blended. Spoon the chocolate mixture over the madeleine and lay down on the tray. Sprinkle with sesame seeds while the chocolate isn't quite set.
Hojicha Latte
- 1/4 cup boiling water
- 2 teaspoons hojicha powder
- 3/4 cup steamed milk
- Sugar to taste
- Sugar to taste
Step 1 - Mix the water and the hojicha powder together until hojicha is dissolved and there are no lumps. Add the milk and then add sugar to taste (start with 1 teaspoon and taste).
Personal Note
I was recently talking to a friend about timing. She was telling me about her relationship woes. She had a friend who she had known for years whose wife left. They had reconnected and there was a new attraction between them. Because they were good friends, she felt like they had a strong foundation for a relationship but was wary of the timing with his recent broken heart.
My advice comes not from a place of knowledge or wisdom but with the background of food. I told her that she shouldn't be the first relationship after the breakup.
"It's like the first pancake - it's a trial run, you discard it or eat it but you don't serve it up," I explained because food analogies are the only way I can describe things. As I said, I'm sure my advice is probably 99% cuckoo and based on my own life and that of my friends but my friend who also loves food understood it immediately. I may not speak relationship, but I speak food!
So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever tried hojicha before and what do you think of it? What do you think about the timing of the relationship and the pancake theory?