Madeleines

It is easy to fell in love with those little butter cakes the first time you try them: it is exactly what happened to me , I had to find the recipe. And then I’ve got hooked: every time I have extra 30 mins and a mood for baking – I am preparing madeleines.

Apart of eggs, butter, flour and a few other ingredients you will also need madeleine molds (baking pans) to prepare those french sponge cakes. Internet says they exist in two sizes: bigger and smaller.

I’ve spend quite some time before I finally found bigger ones in Williams-Sonoma, I was also lucky they appeared to be nonstick ones. By the way if you cook in small size molds – reduce cooking time to about 6 mins.

With ingredients described in this recipe will get you about 24 madeleines, enough for 2 baking forms with molds of bigger size. If you want more just double or triple the amounts.

Ingredients:

• 3.5 oz of unsalted butter (about ¾ of stick) for the batter + some more to grease backing molds
• ½ cup of all purpose flour
• 1/3 cup of sugar
• 2 eggs
• Lemon for zest (or dried or frozen zest of ½ of lemon)
• ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract (can be substituted with the same amount of vanilla sugar)
• ½ teaspoon of salt

How to prepare, step-by-step:

1. Prepare ingredients: as I wrote vanilla extract can be substituted by the same amount of vanilla sugar, as well as you can use frozen or dried lemon zest instead of the fresh grated one. You will also need a form for madeleines (which was a bit of a hassle for me to find, but I’ve finally got it from Williams-Sonoma). If you have only one form you will need to bake twice:
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 1

2. First you need to melt butter and let it cool till the room temperature. By doing butter first you will save some time. So, take 2 cooking pots: one slightly smaller than another, fill bigger pot with water and bring it to boil. Put butter (3.5 oz of it) to smaller pot and place it inside of the bigger one, so it is about 1” deep into the water:
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 2

3. While butter is being melted, grease baking form with butter, make sure you get all the ridges:
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 3

4. When all butter is melted, take the cooking pot with it out of the water and set it aside – butter should cool down to room temperature before it can be added to the batter (by the way, you don’t need the other pot as well, so don’t forget to turn the heat under it off):
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 4

5. Add eggs and salt to the mixer bowl and beat them together on high speed with wire attachment until eggs get doubled in a volume (for approximately 3 mins):
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 5

6. Continue beating and slowly add sugar:
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 6

7. Continue beating until sugar is completely dissolved:
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 7

8. Add vanilla extract:
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 8

9. If you are choose to grate zest form the fresh lemon, wash lemon thoroughly, sometimes lemons you are buying in the stores are covered with wax to keep them from drying. So make sure you get the wax removed before removing zest from it. Then grate zest from ½ of the lemon (make sure you only get the yellow part of the skin):
   
   

   Madeleines Recipe: Step 9

10. Add zest to the mixer bowl and mix it in to the batter:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 10

11. Use flour sifter if you’ve got one, or sieve like me and add all flour:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 11

12. Turn mixer to slowest speed it has and mix flour in just until the batter is homogeneous:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 12

13. Now it is time to add melted butter, but make sure it is already cooled till room temperature or wait until it is and then add it to the batter:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 13

14. Gently stir butter in with a spoon or mix it with wire attachment on slowest speed your mixer has got. Stir until you can’t see any sign of butter, but not to long just until the mix is homogeneous:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 14

15. Fill each mold with batter for about 2/3 using a spoon:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 15

16. Repeat for all molds. The batter you’ve got should be enough for 2 baking forms, if you got 2 – fill them both. If you have only one form, you will need to bake second portion after first one is ready (repeat step 15 – 19, don’t forget to clean molds and grease them with butter again!):
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 16

17. Preheat oven on 350F and put madeleines pan(s) in:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 17

18. Bake for about 10-12 mins or until madeleines start getting brown edges:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 18

19. Get madeleines out of molds immediately (turn the baking pan upside down and shake it over the paper towel on the table) and cool on the racks:
    
    

    Madeleines Recipe: Step 19

20. Then dust cakes with powdered sugar:
    
    

    Madeleines

Enjoy!

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