INSTRUCTIONS
What are madeleines?
Madeleine is a delicious bite-sized sponge cake with a very distinctive shape which gives it all its charm. They’re baked in special moulds that imprint a shell-like pattern to bottom of the cake while the other side shows a small mound.
To be honest, the bump has nothing to do with the pan, rather with the baking temperature (or temperatureS should I say). Making madeleines is not difficult but you must follow the instructions carefully. These little cakes are the result of a series of chemical reactions and if you don’t follow the whole process, you won’t get perfect madeleines.
Getting that nice bump is maybe the most challenging part of making perfect madeleines; you’ll see many madeleines being displayed or photographed with the shell-like side up as if this was the most important feature. In France though, the shell-like surface is considered to be the bottom of the cake and we always proudly display the bump. A madeleine without a bump is not a madeleine. Some people like to eat the bump first, some save it for last (I’m one of those! Chipping away the sides of the madeleine until only the tender middle cakey part remains).
In France they’re usually flavoured with vanilla and many people also add lemon zests. We like that hint of lemon and that’s the recipe we’re sharing with you 🙂 In this recipe we use doTerra’s lemon essential oil (please note that not all brands of essential oils are edible. More info on doTerra’s oils here)
Both kids and adults usually love them and they’re an ideal companion to a nice cup of tea.
How to store madeleines?
They get dry rather fast and are best eaten within a few hours after they came out of the oven.
To store them longer, there are 2 options: freeze them and they’ll keep for weeks or place them in a Ziplock bag or metal tin and eat within 48 hours. The nice crunch they have right after being baked will slowly fade away and the madeleines will become soft all the way, there’s nothing you can do about it; make sure you enjoy some right after baking them!
You can store unbaked dough for 24 hours in the fridge. You could bake half of it on the Saturday and the other half on the Sunday to enjoy freshly baked madeleines all week-end!
BEFORE YOU START
Leave your butter at room temperature for a few hours until it’s very soft, or melt it before you start weighing the rest of the ingredients. You don’t want to add hot butter to the recipe, we need warm or room temperature butter.
Download or print the Madeleines recipe sheet but don’t forget to read the blog recipe and watch the video for more details!