Growing up there was one cookbook that stood out among the rest: the bright yellow tattered copy of La Cuisinière Provençale, a classic French cookbook originally published in 1897 that favored simple recipes without superfluous fuss or drama. One of our favorites is a surprisingly simple recipe for the quintessential French cookie: Madeleines.
We learned to make these cookies years ago with our Tante Marie teaching us the way her mother had taught her. It involves some elbow grease, but the ingredients are simple and the approach is uncomplicated. The results are comforting and full of satisfying flavor and texture.
What You Need
Ingredients:
8 eggs, separated
500 grams sugar (1 1/4 cups)
500 grams melted butter (2 cups)
500 grams sifted flour (4 1/2 cups)
Zest of one lemon
1 tablespoon vanilla extract or other flavor (optional)
Equipment
In addition to normal kitchen tools you will need some Madeleine pans. If you have a kitchen scale, go with those measurements otherwise follow the approximations above.
Instructions
(As translated from French)
1. By hand, cream the egg yolks with the sugar using a wooden spoon (the book recommends 15 minutes of creaming, but you can get away with 10 unless you have a partner to switch off with)
2. Add most of the lemon zest and any 'parfum' or flavor you might want such as vanilla extract, orange blossom water or almond extract.
3. Whip the egg whites to soft peaks.
4. Fold in the egg whites to the egg/sugar concoction and then add in the butter and flour making sure not to overwork the batter but making sure to mix well.
5. Grease the molds and drop in the batter, filling them 3/4 the way full. Sprinkle some extra zest over the tops. Clack the molds against the table to get any air bubbles to come to the surface.
6. Bake in an oven 'not overly hot'. We normally set it to 300 and wait for the madeleines to turn slightly golden and puffed, about 15 minutes.
Additional Notes: We've had great success adding some lemon juice, rosewater or even chocolate chips into the recipe to change it up. Becuase it's basically a pound cake the cookies stay good for several days as long as they're sealed up and they're wonderful with coffee.
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(Images: Laure Joliet)
(Originally published March 5, 2010)
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Can the creaming of egg yolks by hand be replaced with a KitchenAid?
What a lovely, simple recipe. All I need now are some madeleine pans.
bklnchic--I'm sure you can without changing it much. I always stay true to the wooden spoon but more out of habit then a clear reason why wood would make a difference!
is it possible to make madeleines in anything other than a madeleine pan? or does the shape, as well as the ingredients, also qualify it as a madeleine?
I have one madeleine pan - is it ok to allow the batter to sit while baking one pan at a time?
I second Sousani's comment. And hopefully when I make them in batches, I won't eat the cooling ones before the ones in the oven are done... :-)
Aux fours, tout le monde ! Proust nous attent !
The only problem with madeleines is that every time my husband makes them we immediately "just one more" ourselves through the whole batch!
Also a great recipe:
http://bitten.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/21/a-real-madeleine/
I've made it several times and I love the results.
OMG I need a madeleine pan. I have been wanting to make these for a while now, the shape and the color and the promise of a delicious cookie... oh. I will take this post as a sign!
Sousani and friscolex--the batter can definitely rest between batches, just don't overmix it!
Laure! Always with the great posts. I've never tried to bake Madeleines - but I love to eat them. This recipe sounds very tasty, perhaps I'll have to buy a pan bake up a batch or two or three.
loves2sneeze: I think that, legally, the shape of a madeleine is what makes it a madeleine, but as long as you're making them for your own consumption you can use a mini-muffin pan instead-I won't tell the french police if you don't! Seriously though, madeleines do have a special taste of their own that makes it worth making them even if you don't have the cute pan.
I'll have to try this recipe, the one I use required me to refrigerate the batter overnight. And adding rosewater sounds really good!
bklynchic: I use an electric hand mixer, so I'm sure a kitchenaid with the whisk on medium would be fine.
Sousani: my recipe differs some (it requires overnight refrigeration, and less eggs) but I think it would be ok if you let it sit while the first batch baked.
Love these. I had the fortune of picking up a madeleine pan for a song at a garage sale a few years ago and make a couple of batches/year; the standard recipe of with a healthy amount of lemon juice and zest. They are more cake-like than cookies and delicious on their own or with a glass of milk.
I had blueberry madelines at a cafe in San Francisco a few years ago....that's what I'd throw in, since they were DIVINE! (and that cafe no longer makes them :o(
I can't recommend this recipe highly enough. I'd been casting about for a reliably delectable madeleine recipe when I hit on this one, and it's simply never failed.
These madeleines coupled with a pot of Earl Grey tea equals bliss (with or without the Proustian nostalgia).
now i can stop buying the packaged ones from Starbucks!
I'm obsessed with Madeleines! Last year I tested tons of recipes to find the perfect one. I even buy madeleine pans every time I see them. The best ones are the shiny metal ones. The nonstick ones make them too dark.
I'm excited to find a new recipe I haven't tried yet. I can't wait to test it out! Does anyone know a good chocolate madeleine recipe? Like the Starbucks ones. They're soo good.
Loves2sneeze and Sian, although you could put madeleine batter into a mini-muffin tin and maybe get away with calling them madeleines, the traditional shape is what results in the edges getting that lovely chewy-crispness, a really important element that would be missing in a differently shaped mold.
So I've made this recipe twice now: the first time I divided the ingredients since I only had 4 eggs around, and a second time just now with the full list of ingredients.
Is the batter supposed to be smooth like the pictures above? I bought a sifter but it's a piece of junk. My batter (both times) turned out lumpier than the pictures above, but I didn't want to 'over work' the batter as the instructions above warn.
The first batch seemed to turn out ok; they tasted fine. I haven't tasted this second batch yet, but as the madeleines were were baking something was foaming all around the edges; I'm guessing the egg whites were separating from the batter...?
I guess my second question would be how gentle do I really need to be when mixing everything together? Could I use a mixer for all the steps?
I bought a good madeleine pan, so I'm determined to make excellent madeleines.