Madeleines
Madeleines are delicious scallop-shaped French tea cakes - buttery, cakey, crisp at the edges, with a hint of vanilla and lemon. Perfect for dunking in your cup of tea!
Servings 16 madeleines
Ingredients
- 100 g unsalted butter - plus additional 20g for brushing into the pan
- 100 g all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- pinch salt
- 2 large eggs
- 80 g caster sugar
- 20 g honey
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tbsp lemon juice - optional
- 1 tsp lemon zest - optional
Instructions
- Melt the butter and keep aside to cool down to room temperature. Add vanilla, lemon juice and zest once cooled.
- Sift the dry ingredients - flour, baking powder and salt. Keep aside.
- In your standing mixer, or using a hand mixer or even just a whisk, whisk together eggs and sugar for about a minutes till you get a foamy mixture. Add the honey and whisk for another 4-5 minutes till your eggs double in volume and you've added a lot of air in the mixture.
- Sift the flour mixture into the eggs in 2 parts and gently fold in without losing the volume you just got.
- Take a large spoonful of the batter and add to the room temperature melted butter. Whisk in till they emulsify and well combined. (This will help even mixing of butter into the batter instead of directly pouring the butter in).
- Add the butter into the main bowl and gently fold in till you get a homogenous mixture. Make sure you do not deflate the batter.
- Cover the bowl and keep aside at room temperature for about 90 minutes.
- When about 15 minutes left in your resting time, prepare the pan and preheat your oven to 180C. Take some melted butter and using pastry brush liberally apply it on your pan so that all the indentations are well greased.
- Once your oven is preheated, scoop about 1 tablespoon of batter into centre of each mould. You don't need to spread the batter around, it'll bake out into the shape.
- Bake the madeleines at 180C for about 10 minutes till the madeleines get humps in the centre that spring back when gently pressed, and the edges start to turn golden brown.
- Remove the pan from the oven and invert it onto a cooling rack. They should come out easily if you've prepped your pan well. Let them cool.
- Store cooled madeleines in an airtight container for a few days. You can also freeze them properly wrapped for a couple of months.