Traditional Madeleines
By Claudia on May 20, 2008 | In Kuchen & Kekse, In English, Frühstück & Brunch | 16 feedbacks »
I was quite pleased when this weeks' recipe for Tuesdays with Dorie was announced: Tara of Smells like Home chose Traditional Madeleines! An easy recipe I thought. And it was quite easy, but something seemed wrong with the recipe: Even though the recipe asks for baking powder Dorie proposed to refrigerate the dough for at least three hours (and up to two days!). Baking powder reacts with liquid. When dissolved the acid and bicarbonate react and emit carbon dioxide gas which produces bubbles and leavens the dough. So normally you have to bake your cake immediately after adding the baking powder. Refrigerating the dough was meant to build the little bump in the middle of the Madeleines later in the baking process. I doubted it even more when looking at the photo in the book. There were no little humps or bumps.
Anyway, I baked the Madeleines and they were very, very tender. The slightest pinch with my finger would have harmed the Madeleines, so it was quite difficult to get them out of the pan. Even out of the silicone pan.
Today I had a look at Dorie Greenspans book "Paris Sweets". There she describes a recipe for "Classic Madeleines". It seems to be almost the same recipe:
In Baking From My Home to Yours Dorie uses 2/3 cups of flour, in Paris Sweets 3/4 cups. In BFMHTY it's 3/4 TS baking powder, in PS she uses 1/2 ts baking powder. BFMHTY In the latter there is no vanilla extract and no salt and 1 tb less butter. The other ingredients are the same. I think the recipe in "Baking from my home to yours" should have more flour and and less baking powder.
The question to all of you: Is it possible that the little hump is due to refrigerating the dough? I have baked Madeleines with these little bumps and I haven't refrigerated the dough. As far as I know it's the shape of the Madeleine pan that produces this wonderful shape.
Besides the technical problem: The Madeleines were very soft and spongy with crispy little edges. To appreciate these Madeleines you should bake them not in advance. There best still warm.
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16 comments



Cheers,
Rosa

Clara @ I♥food4thought






Aber an der Sache mit dem Backpulver ist definitiv was dran ...

Aber ich merke mir die Rezepte und Anmerkungen auf jeden Fall und hol' das nach.


I was just looking at her madeleine recipe in Paris Sweets the other day. She does make it sound like the silicon pans are much easier to remove the cookies from... but from what you said, maybe not. Sounds like lots of folks had problems with that.
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