I’m a big believer in trying new things and that relates a lot to what I bake as well. One thing I have always wanted to attempt to make is Madeleines, mainly because I thought they would be difficult to make but as a matter of fact they are simple to make.
Madeleine’s were a whole new concept to me and I’ll admit I was unsure whether they would actually be nice. I had no idea what these were until there was some at work one day, they were just shop brought ones from Tesco but I could not get enough of them. They were so tasty that I kept thinking that I must try to make some.
I brought a Madeleine tin when I purchased all my tins for my birthday last year but I have not actually used it yet therefore I thought it was about time I actually used the tin. These are not the classic Madeleine’s but you cannot beat adding a little chocolate to the recipe.
You have to chill this recipe before you put it in the oven so you may not want to pre-heat your oven until your mixture is chilled. I put my oven on after the mixture had been chilling for 55 minutes. I had some mixture left over so I just made some more after the first batch was done.
There is only one word for this and that is YUM! They are really light and just perfect (well I think so). People kept asking me what are Madeleine’s exactly and my definition is that they are small little shell cakes.
Chocolate Chip Madeleines
Ingredients
- 2 eggs
- 85 g golden caster sugar
- 1 tbsp runny honey
- ½ tsp vanilla extract
- pinch sea salt
- 100 g plain flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 75 g unsalted butter
- 75 g dark chocolate chips
Instructions
- Grease a Madeleine tin with some butter.
- Whisk the eggs with the sugar, honey, vanilla and salt in a large bowl for 5-8 minutes until very pale and at least doubled in volume, using an electric whisk.
- Sift over and fold in the flour and baking powder, then the melted butter and chocolate chips. Cover and chill for an hour or two, or overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 240C/220C fan/gas 9. Give the chilled mixture a good stir and fill the moulds by three quarters with a heaped teaspoon.
- Place the cakes in the oven, immediately turn the temperature down to 220C/200C fan/gas 7 and bake for 4 minutes. Then turn the oven down to 190C/170C fan/gas 5 and continue baking for another 3-5 minutes until domed and risen in the centre, the mixture is set and the edge of each cake is golden.
- Run a knife around the edge of each one. These are lovely eaten slightly warm, but good for a couple of days thereafter if stored in an airtight container. Dust with icing sugar before serving if wished.
