Lemon Infused Madeleine

Lemon-infused Madeleine

 

Lemon Infused Madeleine

Madeleine is a traditional small cake from the northeastern region of France and very often, can be identified by it's distinctive shell-like shape . It is similar to eating a lighter version of a very small sponge cake. (Adapted from Wikipedia)

Before moving to the States, I had never eaten a madeleine and doesn't even know of its existence. So when my darling husband picked up a huge box of Sugar Bowl's madeleines and declared it as one of the best tasting pastry during one of our Costco's shopping trips, I was intrigued. A quick check on the portion, we decided against buying the box of madeleines as there's only two of us and it would take us a long time (plus a lot of exercise!) to finished the whole box. Needless to say, I was slightly disappointed.

A few days later, my darling surprised me with a madeleine (i.e. one piece). It turns out that my husband's office often occasionally Sugar Bowl's madeleines from Costco, he decided to bring one home for me to try. It was love at first bite! :)

After searching the internet, it turns out the it isn't too difficult to make madeleines. With that, I bought a nice madeleine pan on amazon and started my baking frenzies. :)

Recipe (Yields about 16 large Madeleine)

Ingredients for dough

140g sugar (3/4 cups)
Lemon zest from 1 regular size lemon (more if you like it to be lemony)
3 extra large eggs (room temperature)
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice
(If you like it to be more lemony, you can add in up to 2 teaspoon of lemon juice.)
140g all purpose flour (scant 1 cup)1/4 teaspoon baking powder
140g unsalted butter (room temperature)


For greasing and dusting of pan
25g all purpose flour
25g unsalted butter (soften to room temperature)

1) Mix sugar and lemon zest together. Set aside for 1 hour in room temperature.

2) Lightly whisk all ingredients the eggs, vanilla essence and lemon juice. Set aside.
Stop when you can't see streaks of the vanilla essence.

3) Sieve flour and baking powder into a separate bowl.

4) Melt the butter in microwave for 30 seconds. Leave to cool at room temperature.

5) Grease the pan with butter, then lightly dust the pan with flour. Tap away excess flour by inverting the pan.

6) Using a hand-held electric egg beater, beat the sugar and eggs mixtures together until thick and foamy.
Stop when the mixture resemble thick melted cheese. (about 3 ~ 5 mins on high)

7) Fold in the flour into the batter.

8) Fold in the butter.

9) Pour mixture into pan. Do not fill more than 75% of each shell.

10) Bake in a 375 F oven for 15 mins to 20 mins. 
Ready when a toothpick comes out clean.

Trouble-shoot


1) Cake turn out too hard - you may have over beat the batter in step 6. See below video for thickness of batter.

2) Cake turn out lumpy - the flour was not properly incorporated. You can try to sieve in the flour into the batter before folding.

3) Cake turn out black on the "shell" side and uncooked on the humps - your oven may be too hot.

You can try to bake them on 400 F for 10 mins, then lower the temperature to 350 F and bake for another 10 mins.  I normally leave the oven door ajar for 30s after 10mins to reduce the temperature of the oven quickly.

4) Hump does not form on the back - for extra hump, chill the batter in the refrigerator for at least an hour before use. Note the batter will be "harder" after refrigeration. See attached video on how to transfer to pan.

** Note - I adapted the recipe from Rasa Malaysia.