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Ah, the madeleine, the illusive shell shaped petit cake from the French Loire region. Several recipes were made and resulted in a rather dry and dull confection. Nothing to shout about and not what Proust could have meant when he wrote those famous words:
No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin…. And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.
—Marcel Proust (author 10-7-1871 – 18-11-1922), In Search of Lost Time
The joy of creating the camel hump or ‘bosse de chameau’ as the French would say
Cakes, breads or cookies, the most important thing is finding that firm base of a good recipe. And we think we found it when we tried the one Mr Suas provides in his excellent book ‘Advanced Bread and Pastry’. Like with all these recipes aimed at professional bakers and pastry chefs you have to do some recalculation and tweaking with ingredients, methods and oven settings to make it work for the home baker.
We think our recalculated recipe and adjusted method is ready and worthy of sharing with you. It took us some bakes to hit that sweet spot where color and crumb are just right. We give you our exact times and temperatures, but remember that with these short baking times, a minute can make a lot of difference. So you might need a few turns too to get it right with your oven.
Let us know what you think!
Ingredients for the Madeleines
makes about 30 madeleines, depending on size of shells in tin
175 g pastry flour / French type 45 flour
5 g baking powder
175 g butter, melted (or you can make ‘beurre noisette’)
140 g sugar
20 g soft brown sugar
30 g runny honey (flower /acacia)
4 small eggs with total weight of 190 g
0.7 g / 1/8 teaspoon salt
flavoring of choice: lemon, almond, vanilla…
Making the Madeleines
Start by sifting the flour with the baking powder. Set aside. Melt the butter over low heat and leave to cool slightly.
Combine sugar, soft brown sugar, honey, eggs, salt and optional flavoring. Just make sure you get a homogeneous batter, you do not need to mix. We use a Danish dough whisk for this.
Add the sifted flour to this mixture and make sure all the flour is incorporated by stirring gently. The flour does not have to be 100% percent incorporated at this point as you will stir some more while adding the melted butter. Now slowly add the melted butter and fold it in until everything is combined and all butter has been ‘absorbed’.
Store in the fridge for one to two hours. Mister Suas pipes the batter into the molds and puts the filled molds in the fridge, but we do it our way out of practicality. We do not have enough molds to fill and chill in one go, so we chill the batter, fill the molds and place the remaining batter back in the fridge for the second round of baking.
Preheat your oven at 235ºC / 455ºF conventional setting.
Brush the molds (we use a non-stick version) with butter, then lightly and evenly dust with flour. After chilling scoop your madeleine batter in a piping bag. Fill the molds to about 3/4 with batter.
Take the filled madeleine mold and place it in the oven on a baking rack, on a tier above the center. Bake the madeleines at 235ºC / 455ºF for 2.5 minutes. Now turn your oven back to 180ºC / 355ºF and bake for a further 7 minutes. Please note that this method produced the best madeleines for our oven. Like us, you probably have to bake a few batches to get the optimum result with your own oven.
Take the tin out of the oven, immediately release the madeleines and place them on a flat surface for a few minutes. When they have firmed up, you can place them on a cooling rack. Please note that if you place them on a cooling rack too quickly the rack will leave prints on the cakes. We use the flat back of a bamboo chop stick to nudge them out of the mold.
You can give the cakes a lemon or orange glaze as an optional extra, but they do not really need anything added to them. Eat them as fresh as possible. Any leftovers can be stored in the freezer for a maximum of 3 to 4 weeks.
Bonne cuisson!
Dave Kruger says
Can I freeze 🥶 the molds before use ? Also do I need to dust with flour or can I get away with just using melted butter as a nonstick agent? The pans I’ll be using are Wilton nonstick. I look forward to hearing back from you ASAP. This will be my first attempt at making these French cakes.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Dave,
We would always encourage you to first make the recipe as described before trying other methods that might influence the end result (unless you are experienced and know the why and how of your alteration).
We cannot advice you on use of the freezer, based on experience, because we have not tried this ourselves.
We would advice to use butter and flour (butter can form ‘islands’ leaving places with and without butter) or use a pan coating baking spray, just to be sure about easy release, even with a non-stick pan.
Hope the madeleines will turn out well!
Audrey Lagarde says
I am French and this recipe is the best I’ve ever tried ! Thank you so much, you made my day 🙂
Lydia says
Do advise how to tweak this recipe to make them mocha flavoured? Cocoa powder or melted chocolate?
Weekend Bakers says
With mocha, don’t you possibly mean coffee flavoured?
Lydia says
Yes actually so chocolate and coffee!
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Lydia,
Please note that we never made this particular version so we cannot advice you based on experience. We would add cocoa powder (sifted with the flour or added to the wet ingredients) and use a little less pastry flour for this. Plus for a good coffee flavour we would use instant coffee / coffee powder that can be added to the wet ingredients or dissolved in just a tiny bit of water first (maybe for the best result you need to take away a bit of egg white to compensate again).
Hope it will be good, the flavour combination is promising of course!
Michael says
This recipe is phenomenal. I made the batter two days ago and have baked some off each night and still have more for tomorrow. If anything, the batter has just gotten better in the refrigerator. I used American-made Gold Medal unbleached all-purpose flour to no apparent detriment. Don’t consider browning the butter optional; it takes them to the next level. If you’re after the “bump,” which, at least from what I’ve read, is a desired feature, the main factor in its formation is not overfilling the mold. Err on the side of it looking scant in the tin. While probably not traditional, spreading butter and honey on them while still warm is an idea I’m glad I had. God Bless.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Michael,
So glad to get your feedback. Wonderful! And yes we agree, browning the butter in this recipe works perfect and the task itself is never a punishment (the smell alone is worth it).
For people who do not know how to make the brown butter we also use it in the financiers and explain how it works in this recipe:
www.weekendbakery.com/posts…inanciers/
Butter and honey you say…. :)) , never mind the traditions…
Thank you for sharing and enjoy your baking!
Ed & Marieke
WKB
Carla says
I’m excited to try these after reading the comments. How many will this recipe yield?
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Carla,
This recipe yields about 30 madeleines, also depending on size of shells in the tin you use.
Enjoy your baking!
Alki says
Wonderful recipe that works.
One comment, from experience: use a metallic mold. With a silicon mold it’s impossible to get the coveted hump on the madeleine.
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Alki,
Thank you for contributing your advice. Yes, silicon is a poor heat-conductor so you have to take this into account when using them and possibly adjust baking temp and times, but still expect a different result than with the use of a metal tin.
L. Burns says
“We use a disposable piping bag and snip off the end…”
This is why the world is knee deep in plastic garbage. For God’s sake buy a decent cloth pastry bag ($6USD) or make one from parchment paper.
Weekend Bakers says
Yes you are right! We do use these bags but we agree that a reusable option is much better and will adjust this in recipes. We are aware of the plastic problem and all the plastic we use is collected separately and processed for possible recycling.
Nguyen Hoang Thao Minh says
I’ve been disappointed about my previous madeleines but today your recipe made my day!!!It’s turn out so much beautiful more than I expect. Thank you for your inspiration!
Weekend Bakers says
Thank you very much for taking the time to let us know. We love this recipe and are glad it worked well for you too.
Happy madeleines baking and sharing!
Hanna says
my first Madeleines are excellent. Very friendly receip. I cant wait for next once!!! Thank you for inspiration.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Hanna,
Thanks for sharing your results, very glad this recipe works for you too 🙂
Helen Simonson says
Hello Weekend Bakers,
Do I use zeeuwse bloem – frans type 45 for both pastry i.e. quiches/apple tart , and cakes?
I am confused! Thanks Helen
Weekend Bakers says
Hello Helen, zeeuwse bloem is a Dutch word for ‘weak’ flour. All pastry, madeleines, cakes, cookies and sweet baking will be great with this flour. However you can not bake a great bread with this flour. For bread you need a ‘strong’ flour with lots of gluten.
Helen Simonson says
Thank you for your reply! I had bought a huge bag of Zeeuwse bloem from the Zandhaas molen in Santpoort and was worried I could only use it for pastry i.e. shortcrust etc. Relief!
Tee says
I’ve always been a bit disappointed with previous madeleine attempts, so, what with my great esteem for your bread recipes, I thought I’d let you guide me through it — and they have come out absolutely beautifully. Thanks!
Weekend Bakers says
Great feedback Tee, happy they turned out good for you too.
Happy madeleines baking!
Joost den Ouden says
Voor een lichte hazelnoottoets kan de boter in het recept ook eerst nog tot beurre noisette gebrand worden. Ik vind dat persoonlijk nog lekkerder! Neemt niet weg dat deze er superlekker uitzien.
Weekend Bakers says
Hallo Joost,
Dank voor je suggestie. Omdat we ook met financiers in de weer waren geweest rond kerst (waarin ook beurre noisette zit) hadden we een tijdje geleden deze ook toegevoegd aan de madeleines. Wat ons wel opviel is dat het beslag dan een heerlijk intense notensmaak heeft maar dat deze na het bakken nog maar heel licht aanwezig is. Een beetje jammer wel, maar nog geen idee hoe je de intensiteit zou kunnen opvoeren….
Edna Kaveza says
Hi weekend bakery kindly give measurements in other form apart from ml.i have to try this recipe
Weekend Bakers says
All our recipe work best by carefully weighing all the ingredients. For conversion to other systems please consult our Baking conversion table with handy conversion for all main baking ingredients : www.weekendbakery.com/cooki…nversions/
Happy baking!
elena says
Hello again 🙂
This time was for madlene. And they are very good. One question thou: if i don’t want them as sweet as they result, where should i reduce the sugar from? (Less honey? Brown sugar or less white sugar?)
Tx. Waiting for your reply.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Elena,
We have never done this, but would start with less white sugar or maybe use some more honey and less white sugar.
Goof luck with it,
Marieke
david says
Hello Ed & Marieke
Your reciepe is very good, we loved it thank you very much.
For the cooking i used the rofco oven at 180 dégrées celcius.
Placed the mold directly on the stone.
added a little bit of steam.
For normal ovens i read we should put a baking plate while preheating to have the same effect as a deck oven.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi David,
Great to hear you used the Rofco, we have never tried that with this recipe.
Elvira says
Hi Ed and Marieke,
This is wonderful!
For the soft brown sugar, Do you use bruin bastard suiker ?
Elvira
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Elvira,
Because we have this option in Holland, we use the soft yellow sugar or ‘gele basterdsuiker’. It has a slight caramel flavor.
Happy Baking!
Marieke
Karin Anderson (Karin's Bäckerei) says
I’ll definitely try your recipe. I made madeleines twice before, but thought they could be better.
Weekend Bakers says
We had the same experience until we tried the above recipe so I hope it will be the same for you too.
Let us know what you think!
Happy baking,
Marieke
freerk says
How wonderful! I’ve been planning to tackle these from Suas’ book, but haven’t gotten around to it! Thanks.
Weekend Bakers says
Hi Freerk,
Hope we gave you a little extra nudge to try them, having done some pre-baking recalculations . I’m sure they will turn out great, with your baking experience!
Enjoy,
Marieke