French · Dessert
Madeleines
The humped shell-cakes, perfumed with lavender honey and brown butter — batter rests overnight, bakes in eleven minutes, served while the hump still steams
- Prep
- 15 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Serves
- 8
Ingredients
- Eggs — 3 (165 g)
- Caster sugar — 100 g
- Lavender honey — 40 g
- Plain flour — 170 g
- Baking powder — 6 g
- Fine salt — 2 g
- Unsalted butter — 170 g (150 g browned, 20 g for moulds)
- Lemon zest — 4 g
- Whole milk — 20 ml
Method
- Brown 150 g butter to noisette; cool to 45 °C.
- Whisk eggs, sugar and honey 2 min until pale.
- Fold in flour, baking powder, salt and zest; then the brown butter and milk.
- Rest the batter at least 4 h, ideally overnight — the thermal shock of cold batter/hot oven creates the hump.
- Butter and flour madeleine moulds (even non-stick ones); pipe or spoon to three-quarters full; chill the filled tray 20 min.
- Bake at 210 °C for 4 min, then drop to 180 °C for 6–7 min — the hump rises in the temperature fall.
- Rap the tray; turn out immediately onto a rack.