Madeleines
Recipe by Lorraine Elliott, Adapted from The Essential Baking Cookbook by Murdoch Books
Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 12 minutes per batch
Makes 10 madeleines
- 10g/0.3ozs butter, melted and cooled for brushing on tin
- 1-2 tablespoons plain all purpose flour for tin
- 65g/2.3ozs cake flour*
- 1 egg, large, room temperature
- 110g/3.9ozs caster or superfine sugar
- 95g/3.3ozs butter, melted and cooled
- 2 teaspoon finely grated orange, lemon or lime zest
- 1 tablespoon icing or powdered sugar
Cake flour can be bought at the supermarket. You can also make it at home. To make 1 cup/150g/5.2ozs of cake flour replace 2 tablespoons of plain all purpose flour with cornflour/fine cornstarch and whisk well. I usually mix up a big batch of this and keep it in a container ready for baking cakes as it produces a softer texture.
Step 1 - Preheat oven to 180C/350F or 160C/320F fan forced. Brush the 10g/0.3oz of butter in the madeleine baking tray making sure to get in all the crevices. Then sift the 2 tablespoons of flour over the tin. Shake off excess.
Step 2 - Sift the flour three times. Then in a heatproof bowl that fits snugly over a small saucepan with an inch of barely simmering water, add the egg and sugar and whisk until combined. Take a handheld electric whisk and whisk until the mixture turns thick and pale yellow. This can also be achieved with balloon whisking by hand but it will take 2-3 minutes (this is what I do). There should be no grains of sugar in the mixture if you feel it between your fingers.
Step 3 - Remove from the heat and beat with the handheld mixer until the mixture has cooled until barely warm and has increased in volume. Since I don't have a handheld mixer I put it in the stand mixer for this step.
Step 4 - Fold in the sifted flour, melted butter and zest mixing with a metal spoon quickly. Place in a jug with a pouring spout and pour into prepared madeleine tray. Do not overfill, just a little under the top is perfect as shown. Bake for 11-12 minutes. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes. Then take a butter knife and loosen the edges and remove from the tin. I place a cooling rack on top of the tray and flip it upside down. Dust with icing or powdered sugar and serve.
Because these are best when they are freshly baked all of my testing and dozens of madeleines went to my neighbours. We are really lucky that we get on so well with all of our direct neighbours and it's probably because Mr NQN always chats with them while I push out a steady stream of baked goods. I first gave some to one neighbour who gave us a couple of kilos of limes (feel free to suggest any lime recipes!) as a thank you for the limes.
Then another neighbour received a batch and then asked, "That wasn't you that dropped a plate glass at 2.30 this afternoon was it?" I'm embarrassed to admit that indeed it was me that broke a plate and then I remarked to Mr NQN that she probably heard me swear and that it could only be me that would curse like that!
And then we gave a batch to another neighbour commented that whatever it was that I was cooking yesterday afternoon smelled absolutely delicious. These were Cajun chicken breasts which I will be sharing very soon! And I feel safe that if at least something happens to us in our house, that our neighbours will notice!
So tell me Dear Reader, do you notice what your neighbours are doing? Do you bake madeleines often? And do you have any suggestions for limes?