Our classic madeleine recipe

Sweet, tender and perfect with a cup of tea.

A cake that is spongy like but still has the crispy edges with its signature bump.

I LOVE Madeleine, the balance of buttery and vanilla flavour just explodes in my mouth. I use to get the ones from Starbucks or the big boxes from costco, but I always get tired after 2 or 3 of them. They always had this overly sweet and eggy taste, so I decided to go all out in madeleine research and worked on this recipe for almost a year.

I have always disliked dry Madeleine and its issue of drying out after several hours. I experimented with sour cream, cream of tartar, crème fraîche, different flour ratio… but the secret to it all is honey, as it makes it moist, retain moisture for longer and add a special kick to it.

For the ultra-extra flavour profile, I added a kick of whisky. The whisky goes unimaginably good with the nutty profile from the brown butter. I prefer Japanese whisky in my madeleine, but all kind of whiskey works! You could try different variation of whisky and see if you can taste the difference. If you are worried about the alcohol content. No worries! All the alcohol undergoes some sort of heated process, and the alcohol will evaporate from the liquid, leaving only the woodsy and grainy flavour of the whiskey.

Let’s Begin!

Ingredient:

• 125g all purpose flour

• 1/2 tsp baking powder

• 130g unsalted butter

• 2 large eggs, room temp ~50g without shell

• 75g sugar

• 12g honey

• 1/8 tsp salt

• 2tsp vanilla extract

• 2tsp whisky

• 25g fresh cream,room temp

• 100g icing sugar

• 1tbsp whisky

• 1tbsp + 1 tsp water

Steps:

1. Sift Flour and Baking powder

2. Brown Butter till darkish brown

   • The darker the more nutty note the madeleine will have.

   • Be careful of over browning the butter. If you are unfamiliar with browning butter, you could try browning it to a light brown colour and leave it on the side, the butter's colour will continue to deepen as you work on the other ingredients.

3. Combine Eggs+Sugar+Honey+Salt+Vanilla extract+Whiskey

   • Whisk it till smooth and bubbly, don’t worry about whisking air into the mixture. All we need is a homogenous mixture.

4. Add the flour mixture and whisk

   • Do not over whisk it, as too much gluten would form and ruin the texture

5. Add in the brown butter and whisk

   • Make sure the brown butter is warm, not hot or cold

6. Add in Fresh cream and whisk

   • Be careful of over whisking in this step. All we need is a homogenous mixture.

   • A spatula can be used to scrape the sides, to make sure there are no clumps

7. Put in the fridge for at least 6 hours

• Best result is a period of 9-15 hours

• Maximum of 24 hour in the fridge

After Refrigeration:

1. Preheat oven to 220°C/428°F

2. Brush madeleine mold with butter

   • Melted or not melted does not matter

   • Many recipes will call for a flour dusting after the butter layer. It is not necessary, but it will make the madeleine just a teeny tiny bit less buttery.

3. Use a spatula to fold the madeleine mixture couple times to unstiffen the mixture.

4. Fill the madeleine mold to ~ 80%

   • I use a piping bag to maximize control

   • Two spoons would work as well!

5. Put in the oven and immediately lower the temperature to 180°C/356°F and bake for 10 min

   • The madeleine mixture has to be somewhat cold, as it will help tremendously with the formation of the bump

   • Take it out when the bump feels bounces back and the edges starts turning golden brown

6. Glazes can be applied

   • I apply a thin layer to further low moisture in the madeleine

7. Combine Icing sugar+Whisky+Water till homogenous mixture

   • Brush the icing on when the madeleine are cool

8. Bake for 1 min in 170°C/338°F to set the glazes

9. Make sure to eat it when its warm, but it will still be good after a day if it is stored in an airtight container!

This is one flavour variation of the madeleine, to make it another flavour, simply change the extracts and whisky to the extract and liquid you like! If your flavour comes in a powder form, for example. Matcha or Hojicha, you can add a bit less flour and subtitle it with matcha. In this case, you would need to add water to substitute the extract and whisky. If you want a tea flavoured one, you can use a sugar tea mixture directly into step 3. For more instructions on flavour variation in baking check out the flavour altering blog.