Finally getting into the cake section!!! I've been looking forward to this section for a while since I'm not a huge cake person and hopefully these recipes would help change that! I'd always been intrigued by madeleines and they definitely didn't disappoint! Let's get into it :) One of the things I was contemplating going into this was whether or not I was going to frost them quickly after they came out of the oven and if I was I wanted to put some candied lemon peel into the frosting, so the first thing I did was make some candied peel. I didn't use the bouchon method to do this since I had already made candied peel a few times and was pretty familiar with the method. I just cut slices of lemon, removed the peel and the pith, and then boiled the peel a few times before boiling it in a sugar syrup and then let it dry once tossed in sugar. Then it came time to make the batter. Having never made these before I was interested in seeing the method which was fairly similar to a genoise sponge to some extent. It started out with three different pieces, dry ingredients sifted and whisked together, egg and sugar which would be whipped, and then the butter and little bit of brown sugar and honey which would be cooked down together. A lot of the volume and lift for this cake comes from the whipping of the egg with the sugar on medium to then high speed for ~6 minutes in total. This whipped egg and sugar mixture had lightened in color and doubled in volume by the end of it and was very smooth. Then, the dry ingredients were folded gently into the egg and sugar mixture in two parts before the final butter:sugar:honey mixture (which was melted down) was mixed in. I tried to be as gentle as I could while still fully incorporating each part together. The end result was a smooth pale yellow batter which then needed to rest for at least 6 hours (the book said overnight but I forgot to do overnight and then I looked it up and it said 6 hours would be enough which it was). Halfway through the resting period for the batter I used softened butter in the cake mold pan and then dusted each shell with flour before freezing it to solidify the butter into place. The indicator that the batter has rested enough is that there are bubbles that start to rise to the surface from the baking powder becoming completely saturated. As I said before, I saw those bubbles after the 6 hour resting mark and so at that point I piped the batter into each mold as evenly as possible (didn't weigh out 20g/shell like the book says but it all worked out!). Another great thing about these cakes is that because they're so small and delicate they baked in only 8 minutes! One of the things they tell you to look for if you made them properly is if they form the classic Madeleine "hump" on the reverse side of the shell. Needless to say I was very anxious to see that feature appear on mine as they baked but they turned out amazingly! Since I saw people warn against frosting them and just recommended a light dusting of powdered sugar that's what I went with. And just to not waste my candied lemon peel, I diced a few strips as finely as I could and sprinkled it on top of the finished shells to give it a bit of a lemony bite. I have to say how delicious these cakes were though....they were a bit crunchy on the outside and so so smooth on the inside. The candied lemon peel was not in vain as well as it provided a great zing with each bite. I saw that people warned to make sure you eat them within the first 5-10 minutes of them coming out of the oven since they lose their heat so fast and luckily I had a couple helpers devour them and just as quickly as they came out of the oven they were gone! Can't wait to make some different flavored variations of this in the future!!
Bon Appétit!
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