Friday, May 09, 2008

Madeleines



Makes approx 17 Madeleines

IngredientsAmounts
Eggs2
Vanilla extract1/2 tsp
Lemon zest1/2 tsp
Icing sugar120g
Plain flour95g
Baking powder1/4 tsp
Melted butter115g


  1. Preheat oven to 190 degree Celsius. Grease the Madeleines mould.

  2. Beat eggs, vanilla extract and lemon zest. Add in sugar gradually and combine into a thick mixture.

  3. Sift flour and baking powder and add 1/4 of the flour mixture to the egg mixture. Fold in gently. Add in remaining flour and combine well.

  4. Add in the melted butter to the batter and blend well. Scoop the batter into each individual mould.
  5. Bring to bake at 190 degree Celsius for 12~14 mins.





What are Madeleines? My recall of Madeleines were "Seashell cakes" sold at Delifrance in the old days. They were so expensive at that time (to me lah, since I'm only a pathetic stingy Secondary 1 student) that I can't bear to buy a packet for myself, so I don't really know how does they taste like.

It was only when I started collecting recipes that I know of them as a delicate french cake. Being a "Suan Ku", I wiki for an answer:

Madeleines are very small cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions. Their flavour is similar to, but somewhat lighter than, pound cake, with a pronounced butter-and-lemon taste.

Madeleines are perhaps most famous outside France for their association with involuntary memory in the Marcel Proust novel À la recherche du temps perdu (Remembrance of Things Past in the first translation, more recently translated as In Search of Lost Time), in which the narrator experiences an awakening upon tasting a madeleine with lime-flower tea.


Anyway, I think they looked really pretty! My, they taste gorgeous too! With a slight tint of lemon scent going with the spongy cake texture just keeps my fingers want-ing to get more of them. I think they make perfect snacks! I adopted this receipe from Allrecipes.com. Mother's Day will be coming in a few days and I guessed some of you out there might consider baking these petite little cakes for your wonderful mum. I'll sure to do so if my mum fancy them. My mum don't really like sweet cakes as much as I do, probably when she's young but not now. She prefers saltish snacks :)

Last but not least, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!
Mum, I love you :)

5 comments:

レイチェル said...

I didnt get to eat..*POUTZ*

Happy Mrs Kwok said...

Opps! 31st! Okie! Okie! Okie! :P

Anonymous said...

Where did you buy the madeline pans? Thanks.

Manfei Hu said...

Hi.. I bought it at Phoon Huat.
It was $24 if i recalled correctly.

Beau Lotus 涟 said...

Trust me, it's better eating the madeleines than reading Proust's à la recherche du temps perdu. I almost hated madeleines after having to read that book as part of my European Literature course at NUS.

Having said that, that was more than a decade ago and I'm in love with them again. Your madeleines look gorgeous. If I had known I would have gotten the moulds from Phoon Huat in July as I couldn't find any here in Modena.