Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Madeleines


If you follow the goings on of the Tuesdays with Dorie bakers, you know these are supposed to be mini madeleines. But you also know I have a hard time following instructions.

I had something of a madeleine epiphany a while back when I mentioned my disgust with my silicone madeleine pan to my friend Kayte, and she gently referred me to her seminal post on madeleines (you can find it here). She won the blue ribbon at the county fair for her madeleines, and the post she wrote was the equivalent of a thesis on the delightful little cakes made famous by Proust. She eschews all mad pans other than the classic tinned steel, and I promptly bought two and donated my silicone madeleine pan to Goodwill.

These were a last minute project before work this morning and took longer than I thought they would. Of course, everything is taking longer now that I have my buddy with me again:


So yeah, I needed a little something something to cheer me up today. I was a bit preoccupied, and when the recipe said "whisk," I put the whisk attachment on my hand mixer and beat the poor batter like crazy. Oh, and I forgot to add the butter until the very end. But I buttered and floured my pans to the extreme and my exceedingly fluffy but bumpless madeleines popped right out of their pan. They were light, fluffy, crispy on the outside and did I mention they were fluffy? Nothing at all like the dense madeleines you may be used to from your neighborhood coffee shop.

This week's first recipe was selected by another buddy, Di of Di's Kitchen Notebook. I play Words with Friends with Di, and every once in a while she feels sorry for me and lets her eldest daughter fill in for her so I stand a chance of winning a game. If you'd like the recipe for these madeleines, Di has it for you here.

This week's second recipe was chosen by Valerie of Une Gamine dans la Cuisine. She chose Fall Butternut Squash Pie, which I'm sorry I didn't get to. Her pie is GORGEOUS. You can find it here.

5 comments:

Di said...

I'm amazed you put up with me in WWF, since I so seldom remember to play... =) I'm glad the madeleines turned out well in spite of the mixing mixups.

Kayte said...

Oh goodness you had a lot of complications this week! That mad batter can be tricky and finicky but it looks like yours came out just fine. I'm sorry about your foot...that cannot add any joy to your days for sure. I have been playing WWF with Margaret again (I'm a slow go on it still as I forget to do it), now that Matt and his friends are all out of the house and at college and I have more uninterrupted bouts of peace and quiet...lol. You are too funny about my mad post. I tend to be compulsive about things...but then you already know that!! lol It was such fun to hear that you and Nancy got to bake together in person!!

margot said...

The madeleines look terrific, Leslie! It's funny, I noticed the rest of the madeleine recipes in the book do call for using a mixer. I'm sorry about your foot, hopefully it doesn't prevent you from baking too much.

Nancy/n.o.e said...

Oh, no! Not the foot!! I can see how you'd need some cheering up, and baking mads and thinking of Paris would be just the ticket, I'd imagine. I loved this recipe, and can't wait for the final TWD mads in a few weeks.

Unknown said...

Oh no, so sorry to hear about your foot Leslie :( Your madeleines look wonderful - I'm envious of the gorgeous color! Mine got really dark for some reason.