How to Bake Madeleines

Makes: 20-24

Preparation time: 2 hours

Cooking time: 45 mins

Ingredients needed to make Madeleines:

For the madeleines:

• 7 oz all purpose flour
• 3 eggs
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 7 oz butter, melted and cooled
• 4 ½ oz sugar
• ¾ oz honey
• Finely grated zest of a lemon
• 4 tbsp milk
• Icng sugar, for dusting
• Punnet of raspberries

For the lemon curd:

• Juice and finely grated zest of a lemon
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 oz butter
• 1 ½ oz sugar
• Dash of salt

Cooking instructions for Madeleines:

• To make the madeleines, crack the eggs into a bowl and whisk in the sugar until it dissolves and the mixture turns airy, pale yellowish in color.
• Sift the flour and baking powder into another bowl and stir in the lemon zest.
• Add a splash of honey to the melted butter and pour in the milk.
• Whisk them slightly to mix and pour in the whisked egg mixture.
• Stir them well together until properly blended and add half of the sifted flour to it; fold it into the mixture until well combined.
• Incorporate rest of the flour into the above mixture, put a lid on and set aside in a fridge for 4-5 hours or overnight, if possible.
• To make the lemon curd, melt butter in a saucepan and stir in the lemon juice and zest, sugar as well as salt.
• Heat the mixture, while stirring frequently, until sugar dissolves and they are mixed thoroughly; remove from heat.
• Beat the egg yolks in a bowl slightly and whisking it rigorously into the mixture.
• Return the blend to heat and cook over slow flame while beating it continuously until the lemon curd thickens; don’t stop whisking to prevent the mixture from curdling.
• Once the curd begins to bubble, remove from heat and pour it into a fine mesh sieve to smoothen it further.
• Transfer the strained curd into bowl and cover it up with a plastic wrap before refrigerating it for 1 hour or more, until required.
• Warm up your oven to 375 degrees F and grease the madeleine molds with butter; dust them with flour and set aside.
• Transfer the lemon curd into a piping bag, fitted with a small, pointed tip and return it into the fridge.
• Spoon a heaping tbsp of batter into each madeleine mold and press a raspberry in the middle.
• Bake them, in batches, for about 5 minutes and turn it off for a minute.
• Adjust the temperature setting of the oven to 325 degrees F and bake for another 5 minutes.
• Cool them over a wire rack for about 10 minutes.
• Insert the pointed tip of the piping bag into the madeleine and pipe a small blob of lemon curd into it.
• Dust the madeleines with icing sugar and serve immediately.

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons