My cooking experiment- Madeleines

Hou la! c'est délicieux.

There does seem to be some French connection with me because after dabbling a bit with the French language, today I made The madeleine or petite madeleine, which is a traditional small cake from northeastern France.

Original Madeleines (the way it should be)

Now Madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions, but since I didn't have that here in India, I just made it like a cake. Of course when I am saying 'I', it also means that all the time, my mother was present there too, doing things herself and telling me too. So it was a combined effort, with a bit of improvisations and the end result was superb!

They were perfect in terms of colour, see them yourself, the design on top of them called the 'marble effect', which is not something you would find in any madeleine recipes but something we did on our own. It was perfectly baked.When we inserted the knife and took it out, not even a single particle stuck to it. (This is the standard method for checking), in terms of sweetness, it was just right and had a lovely mix of various tastes and the top and bottom were perfectly crusty hard and the middle was nice and soft.

If you are interested in making it, I will give you the recipe and what we did too..because it is an improvised Madeleine!

Here it is-

Madeleines are plump, little sponge cakes traditionally flavored with just vanilla. These have a small bit of orange zest in them for added warmth and aroma.


Cook’s note: The trick to getting notoriously stubborn madeleines out of the pan without cracking them is to very generously grease the pan. Butter works best for this recipe, and it gives the added benefit of helping the madeleines achieve their trademark golden color.

Prep Time: 2 hours
Cook Time: 13 minutes

Ingredients:

•1/2 cup butter, melted

•2/3 cup granulated sugar

•1 teaspoon vanilla extract

•1/2 teaspoon orange zest (optional)

•3 large eggs

•1 cup all-purpose flour

•1/2 teaspoon baking powder

•2 tablespoons confectioners’ sugar

Preparation:

Cream the butter and granulated sugar on high until it is light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract and orange zest to the butter. Turn the mixer to low speed and add the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as needed.

Beat the mixture on medium-high for about 3 to 4 minutes, until the mixture has lightened in color and is very fluffy. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and baking powder. Very gently fold the flour and baking powder into the egg mixture. Once the batter is smooth, cover it and transfer it to the refrigerator for 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 375F. Generously grease 2 standard madeleine pans and spoon the cold batter into the molds. Bake them for 10 to 13 minutes, until they are puffed and turn golden brown. Invert the pans onto wire racks and give them a hard tap to remove the cookies from the molds. Serve them warm dusted with a bit of confectioners’ sugar for the best flavor.
This madeleines recipe makes 12 servings.

Reference- http://frenchfood.about.com/od/cookies/r/madeleines.htm

Now this is the actual recipe but what we did was instead of butter, we used ghee, did not add the orange zest, instead of eggs, added milkmaid & a bit of soda, added chocolate and cocoa powder on the top and spread it (which is why the top looks the way it looks!) and since we did not have the moulds, we did not do that and neither did we put the confectioners' sugar or anything else on top though adding dry fruits can be a good idea.

Do try it out to have Madeleines as if ordered straight from France.

Oh, and yes in case you are wondering where I got the idea for this, it's from Transporter-2 movie!

Bon Appétit!


Madeleines