Hi, does anyone have a good madeleine recipe? I've tried so many but most of them haven't turned out and I have no idea why.. I'm trying to replicate those from the delifrance bakery in my country. They taste like a rather light butter cake haha though I'm not sure if that's what they taste like overseas.
I recently made a batch and there were gigantic holes in the cakes
The first thing to know about true Madeleines is that they should never have a leavening agent added. They are my new "crush" and this is the recipe I've been using. Have made them many times so far, and they are in the coffee room being enjoyed by my co-workers as we speak.
You could try browning your butter to give an other level of flavour. With Madeleines, the sky is the limit! This recipe came from Ricardo.com website.
3 eggs
3/4 cup (180 ml) sugar
Grated zest of 1 lemon and 1 lime
1/2 cup (125 ml) cake flour
1/2 cup (125 ml) unsalted butter, melted and cool
In a bowl, beat the eggs and sugar with an electric mixer for 5 minutes.
Add the citrus zest and blend.
With a spatula, gently fold the flour and butter into the egg mixture.
Let the batter rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
With the rack in the middle position, preheat the oven to 190 °C (375 °F).
Generously butter and flour madeleine molds. Fill each mold up three-quarters. Bake for about 14 minutes or until lightly browned.
Un-mould immediately out of the oven.
Store the cooled madeleines in an airtight container.
This issue a true madeleine recipe but it lends it's very nicely to a madeleines pan.
OLD-FASHIONED SOUR CREAM COOKIES
3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup soft butter or margarine
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
1 cup dairy sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla
Topping
½ cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
Sift flour with baking powder, baking soda, and salt, set aside
In large bowl of electric mixer, at medium speed, beat butter, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy.
At low speed, beat in sour cream and vanilla until smooth.
Gradually beat in flour mixture until well combined. Refrigerate 1 hour.
Meanwhile, preheat oven to 375F. Lightly grease cookie sheets.
Drop batter by slightly rounded tablespoonfuls, 2 inches apart, onto prepared cookie sheets.
For topping, sprinkle unbaked cookies with mixture of ½ cup sugar and cinnamon.
Bake 10-12 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove to wire rack, cool.
Mads are one of my specialties and I use a battle-tested variation of Julia Child's Madeleines de Commercy, which I've included below along with tips and variations and some troubleshooting for the recipe/technique you currently have. Hope it helps, and let me know if you have any questions!
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Troubleshooting Original Method/Recipe
Ingredients:
-Traditional mads don't use chemical leaveners. It's not the greatest sin to use a pinch, but try to reserve it for times when add-ins like mini-chips make your batter particularly heavy.
-Batter is too liquid. A mad batter with that amount of flour can't handle 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and a teaspoon of vanilla and keep its structural integrity. Increase dry flavorants (peel, spices etc) as needed, but keep your added liquid to no more than a tablespoon.
Process:
-The recipe you're using calls for the Whisked Sponge method, which puts a lot of volume into the batter creating an egg foam. Great method, but totally the wrong one for mads, which use the Melting method. When you use the WS method, especially alongside chemical leaveners, you're going to get a sponge or butter cake, not a mad.
-The cups are overfilled. Try scaling back ~20%
Baking:
-Your pans are lovely, but I'm not sure you're getting the best mads you can with them. See recc. below.
-Oven is slightly too cool. Baking little cakes for a long time, especially when you're using leaveners and an egg foam, gives them a chance to rise *and* fall. If you want that hump you want to bake it hotter and faster.
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Okay, now that I've tackled that; let's get on to the good stuff: the recipe, variations and tips
Madelienes de Commercy:
2 eggs, room temperature
120g (1C) flour
140g (2/3C) granulated sugar
140g (~1 1/4 stick) butter
generous pinch of salt
Flavorants (vanilla, lemon peel) as desired, liquid not to exceed 5ml/1 tsp
Brown butter until nutty but not burnt. Cool until room temperature but still liquid.
In separate bowl, beat together eggs and dry ingredients until well combined.
Beat in butter and flavorants if using. Chill at least one hour but do not freeze.
When ready to bake, spoon but do not smooth batter into a prepared and frozen mad pan, taking care not to overfill.
Bake at 375F/190C for ~14min until edges are brown and the middle is humped.
Turn out immediately and cool shell-side down. Makes ~24
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Variations:
-Replace 50g of flour with fine almond flour & use almond extract
-Add 1 tbs minced fresh rosemary to butter while browning, increase salt to 1/2 tsp (this is my signature mad)
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Important Tips:
-Get the right pan. I swear by the Fox Run nonstick mad pan.
-Freeze your empty mad pans after buttering/flouring but before baking. Freeze again between batches.
-Let your batter rest. An hour is good, three hours is better, overnight is best.
-Don't spread your batter into the molds; just drop in a bit of batter like you would a drop cookie.
-Underfill rather than overfill the mold so not to ruin the shape
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