Mmm... Mini Madeleines!

Mmm... Mini Madeleines!

I so love this recipe because it's so fun to make and it is a great experience to make a nice and easy pastry!

mmm...mini madeleines!

Watch Vesper and her sous-chef make mini madeleines!

Don't forget to wait for the blooper reel at the end! We like to go above and beyond with those.

Recipe

To make these mini madeleines, we used the recipe from Dominique Ansel's fantastic pastry cookbook, The Secret Recipes. Vesper received the cookbook from her uncle as a Christmas present this year and has been eager to try it out. Mom had to work hard to convince her to start in the "Beginner" section ...

The recipe is easy and quick (all in all, it takes 30 minutes), but it does take a teensy bit of planning ahead. It takes two days to make because you need to let the batter rest overnight in the fridge.

It's supposed to make 100 mini madeleines, but we may have (um, definitely) overfilled the pan and we got fewer than that. We had invited Grandma and Grandpa over and those madeleines disappeared so quickly after they came out of the oven that we kind of lost count of how many we ended up with.

Ingredients

  • 8 T. unsalted butter
  • 1 T. dark brown sugar
  • 2 t. honey
  • 1/2 c. granulated sugar
  • 1/2 t. kosher salt
  • 1 c. all-purpose flour (sifted)
  • 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 3 eggs (room temperature - we let them sit out for about an hour)
  • Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
  • Grated zest of 1/2 orange
  • Nonstick cooking spray
  • Wire rack
  • Pot holders
  • Confectioner's sugar (to sprinkle on after baking)
Madeleine ingredients

Equipment

  • Mixing bowls
  • Small saucepan
  • Heatproof spoon
  • Whisk
  • Microplane (for zesting the citrus)
  • Uncut piping bag
  • Rubber spatula
  • Nonstick mini madeleine pan (here's a link to the one we used)
  • Small sieve (for dusting the madeleines with confectioner's sugar)

Directions - Day One (Make the Batter)

  • Melt the butter, brown sugar, and honey in a saucepan over low heat. Stir it regularly with a heatproof spoon and keep the heat low so it doesn't burn. Keep it warm while you're mixing the dry ingredients.
Melting the sugar and butter
  • With a whisk, mix the granulated sugar, salt, flour, and baking powder in a large bowl.
Mixing dry ingredients
  • Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients and add the eggs one by one. Whisk after you add each one to make sure everything is mixed together. Then add the next one. We cracked the eggs into a separate bowl before we added them to the dry ingredients so we could make sure we didn't get any shell in the batter. The batter will be very thick and sticky and you'll have to keep clearing out the whisk. We used a butter knife to help with this.
adding eggs one by one
  • Whisk until the eggs are completely mixed in and the batter is smooth.
eggs added
  • Now slowly add the butter mixture, whisking it in as you go. The batter will now be close to the consistency of cake batter.
adding butter mixture
  • Whisk in the lemon and orange zests.
  • Cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Press the wrap directly into the top of the batter so a skin can't form. Put it in the refrigerator overnight to rest.
cover with plastic wrap

Directions - Day Two (Bake the Madeleines)

  • Put a rack in the center of the oven and preheat it to 375 degrees F.
  • The next part is a little messy. With a rubber spatula, put 2 scoops of the batter into an uncut piping bag, filling it about a third full. Push the batter down toward the tip, pushing from the top of the bag.
  • Cut an opening about 1/2 inch straight across the tip of the piping bag.
piping
  • Spray the mini madeleine pan with nonstick cooking spray. Hold the spray 4-6 inches away from the pan so it covers the pan evenly. Don't spray too much (the way we did ...)
  • Hold the piping bag and a 90-degree angle just above the pan and pipe the madeleine batter into the wells. Each well should be about 3/4 full. Ours were a little too full but they came out just fine.
piping the madeleines
  • Bake the madeleines for 2 to 2 1/2 minutes. Ours were enormous and took closer to 3 minutes.
  • Once the batter puffs up in the center, turn the pan 180 degrees (so what was in the front is now in the back of the oven).
puffed at halfway point
  • Bake for another 2 to 2 1/2 minutes until the sides of the madeleines become golden-blonde and the center is set.
  • Unmold them right away. Tip the pan carefully over a wire cooling rack. The madeleines should fall out onto the rack. If needed, bang it against the counter so any that are stuck drop out. We'd greased everything up so well it didn't take any banging at all to get them out.
unmolding the madeleines
  • Put a spoon or two of confectioner's sugar in a small sieve and dust the madeleines.
dusting with sugar
  • Eat immediately! These don't store very well. Invite friends!
  • The good news for anyone who doesn't want to eat 100 cookies in a day is that you can keep any leftover batter with plastic wrap pressed into it in the fridge for about 3 days and have hot, fresh madeleines in minutes.
eat immediately!

Vesper's Tiny Chef Tips

Tip 1: When you're making the butter mixture make sure it doesn't burn if it does, you'll have to start over.

Tip 2: Always remember that if you want the perfect madeleines the night before you always want to put the plastic wrap on the batter.

BUT FRIENDS LET'S REMEMBER THAT THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IS THAT YOU HAVE FUN AND ENJOY YOUR FOOD!

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