Madeleines

A few months ago I was at Bed, Bath, & Beyond to see if they have a broiling pan so I could make burgers at home (I've discovered that it's a good place to go before Amazon for stuff for my apartment that Safeway and Target don't have. Plus I get a coupon with my Good Housekeeping magazine that I like to use). As I usually do when I'm there, I started walking around the area of the kitchen section where the kitchen tools and baking pans are. I came across a pan for making madeleines - a.k.a. mini tea cakes. A madeleine pan is one of the few items left on my Amazon baking items wish list because I've always wanted to make them. So I decided to buy it with the plan to use up leftover chocolate chips from baking Christmas presents. I even found a recipe.

Except that plan never really came to fruition. I wanted to make them for me but never really had an opportunity (yes, I'm one of those bad people who has to have dessert after dinner. However, as I've said before, my hands are magnets to new/limited flavors of Oreos and I want to eat them before making cookies from scratch. This has yet to happen). And I was unsure about how they would be received at work. So the pan sat on my storage shelf, the label still on it. Until I found out we were having brunch for Mother's Day. Perfect! Madeleines seem like the kind of thing you serve at brunch as well as tea. So I pulled out the saved recipe - something simple that I could add chocolate chips to - and got to work.

Madeleines (The Great Big Cookie Book, pg. 88)

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup confectioners' (powdered) sugar, plus extra for dusting
• grated rind of 1 lemon or orange (I just used 1 teaspoon of orange extract)
• 1 tablespoon lemon or orange juice
• 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
• Optional chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375℉. Generously butter and 12-cup madeleine pan (I just sprayed it with cooking spray). Sift together the flour and baking powder
2. Using an electric mixer, beat the eggs and confectioners' sugar for 5-7 minutes, until thick and creamy and the mixture forms a ribbon when the beaters are lifted. Gently fold in the lemon or orange rind and juice.
3. Beginning with the flour mixture, alternately fold in the flour and melted butter in four batches. (I added the chocolate chips to the mixture at this point.) Allow the mixture to stand for 10 minutes, then carefully spoon into the pan (I just used a cookie scoop). Tap gently to release any air bubbles.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through cooking (forgot to do this - oops!), until a skewer comes out clean. Turn onto a wire rack to cool and dust with confectioners' sugar before serving.

The only thing I wish I had done was even out the mixture in the madeleine cups before baking. Still, they turned out great. Between everyone eating them at the brunch and some people taking the rest home, I ended up taking home an empty plate!