Mutable Madeleines

Mike Radin, 2023/06/11

Ingredients

This is the basic recipe, ingredients are grouped by step

• 115g all-purpose flour

• 6g baking powder

• 2 large eggs, about 100g, room temperature

• 90g granulated sugar

• 15g light brown sugar

• 3g salt

• 115g melted butter, cooled

• 20g honey (optional)

• finely grated lemon zest (optional)

Method

• Sift together flour and baking powder.
• Melt the butter with honey and lemon zest, cool to room temperature.
• Whisk together eggs, sugar and salt until light and fluffy.
• Whisk butter and egg mixtures.
• Add flour mixture and whisk until smooth.
• Chill the batter at least 90 min or as long as overnight.
• Thinly coat the mold with a neutral oil or melted butter, dust with flour.
• Fill each indentation with 23-25g of batter. It may be easier to scoop.
• Bake a full sheet 10 minutes at 425F. Watch for peaks and browning edges.
• Cool in the mold until hardened enough to remove, 5-8 min; the rest on the rack to form the crust. Consume the day of, cakes will absorb moisture from the air and become sticky.

Variations

Matcha

• Substitute 30g of AP flour for buckwheat flour
• Substitute 8g of AP flour for matcha powder
• Remove honey

Citrus

• Substitute lemon zest for orange zest
• Substitute honey for 15ml yuzu juice

Chocolate

• Substitute 30g of flour for 20 cocoa powder and 5g instant espresso
• Remove honey
• Remove lemon zest

Miso

• 10g miso
• 20g very finely chopped white chocolate, it will melt during baking
• Remove salt
• Remove honey

Observations

Madeleines are basically pound cake in that it's a 1:1:1 ratio of butter, sugar and flour. However the results wont vary much if the amount of sugar is reduced. If reducing sugar, use less salt. The honey in the recipe above is optional and isn't used in the variations above. For a fluffier texture, consider cake flour instead of AP flour.

Getting peaks to form is not hard, but appears to require some conditions — using chilled batter, filling the mold properly.

Chilled batter may be quite thick especially with thirsty ingredients like cocoa powder. It may be easier to scoop the batter into the mold. The batter will spread out as it bakes.

It’s possible to substitute light brown sugar for just plain sugar or dark brown sugar, it will impact the color of final product somewhat.

If using a non-stick mold, check safe temperature range. Additionally, instead of brushing on a layer of oil or butter, apply it with a paper towel before dusting with flour. Avocado oil has done well here. Using melted butter will add more flavor. Dusting is important, especially for the chocolate variation.

Browning the butter instead of just melting it is a common technique for these cakes.

Eggs can be brought to room temperature more quickly in warm water.

Adding a bit of cornmeal to the basic recipe improves texture.

Tools

It doesn't take much to put this together. The madeleine pan is the only specialized tool, the rest are just bowls, whisks and spatulas. Using a 0.1g resolution scale helps weigh the ingredients at precision an order of magnitude higher. This is useful especially when measuring spices where a 1g resolution scale may give you a 2g reading for cardamom at 1.5g or 2.5g. For coarse measurements a scale with a pull-out display will make it easier to see the readings. Narrow, high-wall mixing bowls are much better for whisking than wide, shallow ones that are fine for general cooking. Sifting flour together with cocoa powder or other powders that tend to clump can be done with a fine-mesh strainer.

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