Madeleines

Name: Madeleines
Cook time: 234 min
Total time: 234 min
Yield: 24
Cuisine: Francesa
Ingredients: 140 g Wheat flour; 140 g Butter; 3 u Egg; 1 u Lemon; 1 pinch Salt; 120 g Sugar; 1 teaspoon Baking Powder; 1 tablespoon Honey

Magdalenas francesas

Medium

Contains allergens

Cereales con glutenLecheHuevos

Incomplete allergen information: some ingredients have not been reviewed yet. Always check the labels before cooking.

Author: Equipo Cocinoa
Preparation time: 4 hr
Servings: 24

Summary

Classic French madeleines: little shell-shaped sponge cakes made with brown butter, eggs whisked with sugar and lemon zest. Chilling the batter and baking it in a very hot oven is what gives them their famous hump.

Ingredients

24 servings

Add to Bring!

140 g Wheat flour (130 g for the batter and the rest for the tin)
140 g Butter (125 g for the batter and the rest for the tin)
3 u Egg (at room temperature)
1 u Lemon (zest only)
1 pinch Salt
120 g Sugar
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
1 tablespoon Honey (for colour and moistness) (optional)

Instructions

Melt 125 g of the butter in a small pan over medium heat and let it cook, swirling the pan, until it stops foaming, the solids at the bottom turn golden and it smells of toasted hazelnuts. Pour it straight into a cold bowl to stop the cooking and leave it to cool until just warm.
8 min
Whisk the eggs with the sugar, honey, lemon zest and salt, ideally with an electric whisk, until the mixture turns pale, doubles in volume and falls in a ribbon.
6 min
Sift the flour and baking powder over the eggs and fold in with a spatula in two additions, just until no dry flour is visible.
3 min
Trickle in the warm brown butter, scraping in the solids from the bottom too, and fold gently until the batter is smooth and glossy.
2 min
Cover the bowl with cling film pressed onto the batter and chill for at least 3 hours, or overnight if you can.
3 hr
Brush each hollow of the tin with the remaining softened butter, dust with the remaining flour and tap the tin upside down to remove the excess. Put the tin in the fridge and preheat the oven to 220 °C (conventional, not fan).
15 min
Spoon or pipe the cold batter into the hollows, filling them three-quarters full and leaving it in a mound in the centre without spreading it.
5 min
Bake for 4 minutes at 220 °C, then lower the oven to 180 °C and bake until the humps have formed and the edges are golden.
10 min
Turn them out straight away by rapping the tin sharply on the worktop and leave the madeleines to cool on a wire rack, shell side down.
5 min

Notes

Madeleines are linked to Commercy in Lorraine, and literature made them famous when Proust turned the taste of one dipped in tea into the start of a flood of memories. The hump (la bosse) comes from the contrast in temperature: very cold batter in a cold tin going into a very hot oven, so the edges set at once and the centre rises. That is why you start hot and turn the oven down after a few minutes. Brown butter (beurre noisette) gives them a hazelnut aroma, but watch it: it goes from golden to burnt in seconds, so take it off the heat as soon as it smells toasty. A metal tin gives golden, crisp edges; a silicone one, paler and softer ones. If you bake a second batch, wash the tin, butter it again and chill it once more. The batter keeps for up to 2 days in the fridge, so you can bake them fresh whenever you like. Madeleines are best warm, on the day they are baked; they keep for 3 days in an airtight tin and freeze well for up to 2 months. You can swap the lemon for orange or add a little vanilla.