Little butter cakes, light and lemony, what’s not to love? I cannot recommend John Kanell’s browned butter recipe enough, so I’m sharing it here with a few edits of my own. The fragrance of the browned butter alone, instant smile.
Enjoy.
Extra Bubbly Madeleines
topped with pink sugar
Equipment
- 1 madeleine baking tin
Ingredients
- 100 g unsalted butter (7 Tablespoons)
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- 100 g granulated sugar (1/2 cup)
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 100 g all-purpose flour sifted (3/4 cup)
- 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch of salt
- pink granulated sugar optional
Instructions
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt butter and continue simmering until browned to a caramel color. Set aside and allow to cool.
- Sift flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl, combine and set aside.
- Add eggs and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment OR to a large bowl if using an electric hand mixer. Beat on high until mixture is a light yellow color with a thick silky texture, about 8 minutes. You’ll see the beater leave trails when it’s ready. Mix in vanilla and lemon zest toward end.
- Once mixing is done, use a rubber spatula to gently fold in dry ingredients into egg mixture and combine. Make sure all flour is combined, but avoid stirring too rapidly or too long.
- Drizzle in browned butter now at room temperature and gently combine.
- Cover batter with cellophane, place touching batter versus top of bowl to avoid surface skin. Chill batter as well as buttered baking tin for 1 hour. Chilling baking tin is one more way to help give the cakes their popular bump.
- After 1 hour, preheat oven to 190C/375F. Important to preheat oven before bringing out batter from fridge.
- Add a small ice cream scoop of batter (or 1 Tablespoon) into each scallop-shaped well. Don’t press or spread batter as you want to avoid losing the air bubbles.
- Bake for 9-12 minutes (keep an eye on it), times vary depending on oven and thickness of pan.
- Once fully cooled at room temperature, you may top with pink granulated sugar, sold ready-made or you may make your own with drop of pink food coloring.
Notes
Measure flour correctly. Adding too much flour to this recipe is a common mistake. The best and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale, but if you don’t have one simply fluff flour with a spoon, sprinkle it into your measuring cup, and use a knife to level it off.
The batter for these madeleines is a genoise, which gets most of its lift from the tiny air bubbles beaten into the eggs. Be very gentle with your delicate batter.
Madeleines are light and airy cakes, not cookies. They’re best the day of, but if you’re storing leftovers make sure to seal in an airtight container.
If your cakes are sticking in the pan after baking, run a knife around the edge and gently press at the base to nudge the madeleine forward. It should release without losing any crumbs.
Your madeleines will still be delicious even if you don’t have that characteristic bump on the back, so don’t stress over it
**I tested out a silicone baking mold, and in my opinion it’s a poor heat conductor that does not brown the surface of baked goods as well as metal. I’d choose metal molds for these cakes.**
