Madeleines

Ingredients

• 100 g butter
• 2 egg
• 90 g white sugar
• 100 g wheat flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 2 tsp lemon zest
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 pinch salt
• 1 tbsp powdered sugar, for dusting

Method

1. 1.

   Brown the butter — Melt the butter in a light-coloured pan over medium heat and keep cooking it past the foaming stage, swirling often, until it smells of hazelnuts and the milk solids on the bottom turn deep brown, 4-5 minutes. Pour it into a bowl, solids and all, and leave to cool to lukewarm.

2. 2.

   Whip the eggs and sugar — Whisk the eggs, sugar, honey and salt together for a good 3 minutes, until pale, thick and doubled in volume. Whisk in the vanilla extract and lemon zest.

3. 3.

   Fold in flour and butter — Sift the flour and baking powder over the eggs and fold them in with a spatula in as few strokes as possible. Fold in the brown butter in three additions, finishing when the batter is smooth and glossy with no streaks of fat.

4. 4.

   Chill the batter — Cover the bowl and chill the batter for at least 1 hour, or overnight if you can. Cold batter hitting a hot tin is exactly what creates the madeleine's famous hump.

5. 5.

   Butter and flour the tin — Heat the oven to 210°C. Brush a madeleine tin generously with melted butter, dust it with flour and knock out the excess. Spoon the cold batter into each shell until three quarters full and do not spread it — it will find its own shape in the heat.

6. 6.

   Bake to a domed hump — Bake for 9-11 minutes, until the shells are golden at the rims, the centres have risen into a domed hump and a fingertip leaves no dent. Unmould them straight onto a rack, dust with powdered sugar and eat while still warm.