Madeleines by Manon Lagreve

A step by step guide to baking some traditional French madeleines, the recipe comes from the excellent book “Et Voila” by Manon Lagreve.
Some of these were a little overbaked due to my dodgy over (which will have been replaced by the time you get to see this release!)

Makes 24 madeleines or 48 petit madeleines
3 large eggs
200g caster sugar
250g plain flour
1 ½ tsp baking powder
125g salted butter melted
50ml whole milk

You can add lemon zest if you want.

Eating SCS we’re going to do some baking now we’re going to make some cakes but these are a special sort of cake they’re French uh cake if you like although some people think of them as cookies or biscuits but they’re not they are actually cakes and um I’m taking the recipe from this

Book here a voila uh I think the wife bought me this cuz she had said about getting it uh some of the really nice recipes and I haven’t tried any yet so this is the first one although there’s lots in here I’m going to do it’s all right

Cupcake gamma I’m still using yours um but the interesting thing with this this is all obviously French baking and French you know Patisserie um and I think there’s some bread in there as well um and interestingly I went to a local um French restaurant sort of Cafe Restaurant um the other week

And for dessert they had a whole range of patisseries and I’m flicking through that book again I’m thinking oh there’s that one oh there’s that one so I’m going to have to make some other things from there but anyway we’re going to make madlins these are French melins there

Are British melins but they’re completely different these are your classic French melin so the melins are made the only thing that’s different is the fact that you need this sort of special melin mold they have this shell shape um we’re not going to need that yet just yet because it’s

Important that you rest the batter if you like for at least an hour in the fridge or preferably overnight well we’re not going to do overnight we’re going to rest it for an hour or so um and it’s a simple sponge mixture okay some recipes they add almond ground almond but we’re just

Making a simple uh one with lemon zest so they’re going to be lemon bins so in here I’ve got 200 g of castor sugar and then I’m just going to add that broke nicely didn’t it no um three large eggs and we’re just going to whisle that

Together now you could do it in a stand mixer if you want but not um so the meline like I say is a traditional um french cake and I’m going to tell you a little bit about them about the history of it but what we’re just going to do now is just

Whisk this together and I’ve got in the sauce sp there some as it happens I only buy unsalted butter and you want salted butter in this case so I’m going to add a pinch of salt to the batter at one point um but you need it melted to blend it in

With this uh I’ve got 125 G of that and I’ve just warmed that up melted that down um then you’re going to want plain flour um 250 g of plain flour 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder and 50 m of milk whole milk and then obviously because we’re going to flavor

This with lemon uh you want a lemon or you you you want the zest from one lemon so I’m just going to get make sure that’s all nicely mixed together and we’ll start adding the rest and I’ll start telling you a bit about the melin so I’ve got that whisked together and so

Now I like I said I want 1 and 1/2 taspo spoons of baking powder okay one and a half now I said to you we need to rest this batter once we’ve mixed it all up it’s important we do that else um they won’t rise and like I say

These are like little mini uh sponge cakes unfortunately the big Sie I had to use yesterday and it’s still a bit dirty and a bit wet so I’m having to make do with this little one so I’m just going to sip this flower in now I’ll s to you how we

Traditionally use this tray uh there’s quite a few stories about where the melins come from uh but what is known it is a traditional French from Northeast France uh the the rain region and there are two specific uh communities there where it sort of originated from um

But the general consensus is is called a madlin because it was named after its inventor a woman called mlin but there are variations on quite who it was the General consensus is that she was a cook if you like for quite a wealthy Patron quite who this wealthy Patron is is subject to

Debate um one story is that it was um a chap this is during the 18th century uh chap um stany L at the first it was the Duke of the rain and actually as it happened he was the exiled king of Poland um and and he had so we’re just

Mixing this all together now um he had a a castle um and he was the son-in-law or rather Louie the 15th was um the son-in-law um of Stan house and so obviously he would visit and on one of these occasions he saw these mini little cakes baked by

Um meline meline uh poier I think it was and he was um very taken with these cakes uh so much so he said I’m going to name them after you these are madlins uh his wife Maria King you know Louis the 15th wife Mar she took to them as well and she took

Them off back to the French court and said look at these wonderful things well of course that was what then spurred the whole of France to take up these melins because you know this is what royalty ate and so that’s one story about how it became

Now I said to you I’m just going to add a little pinch of salt simply because um I’m not using salted butter which is unusual really cuz most recipes cook with so more you know they also add unsalted butter um I’ll have to have a look at

You I don’t know whether perhaps that’s a Frenching perhaps they just do use salted butter so um what other stories were there uh another one was that um her Patron was this rather eccentric Rebel known as uh a well actually he was a cardinal uh Paul

Uh de gondi and he had a castle in the rain region in specifically in commer which is one of the regions attributed to the invention of the mad right so I think we’re now ready to move to the next stage this is where we’re now going to whisk in that melted butter um

I think I said to you 125 G of that and we want to make sure this is all thoroughly mixed in and then all we’ve got left to add is our milk and our lemon this now like I said you don’t actually have to flavor them with

Lemon you can have plain you can have with vanilla uh some people um dip them in choc chocolate and I think in her book she she makes it says she’s making four different ways uh one is that she I’m not quite sure cuz she says fill the center with uh

Nutella and it’s like with using the piping B and I’m not sure how she means do that I presume she means after they’re cooked but but anyway we’re just going to make some nice plain lemon ones so to make sure that butter is all in there um another story is that actually

These cakes didn’t originate in France um but the person madlin who either bought the recipe back to France and therefore it became attributed to France or it was actually sold by someone called mandaline uh in Spain where they’re going for pilgrimage um so like I say it’s there’s various stories as to how

You know these came about right so that’s that in there so now what we do next is we just take our milk and we whisk that in got that next in and so now I’m just going to take one lemon and zest it now the first sort of record if

You like of a um of melins date back to the 18th century um and well I’m talking about in France this is 18th century and in 1758 uh a French Jacoby um what was his name I I don’t know his name he was a jackob refugee in France um and he said

He was or is written that he said to his prepare cakes Allah mlin and other small desserts so it didn’t necessarily say what the Ming was but that’s you know the term was used if you like um but it’s also the Bing seems to have occurred at

The same time as there was this increasing use of molds um to shape product if you like um and so think I got that on little bit there um and it sort of that was about the 1760s when people started using molds and then it sort of spread from

There um get rid of that right and and mix that in now we’re now finished as it were so I’m just going to make sure that’s mixed in and then we’re going to cover that over and that’s going to rest for an hour at least in the fridge like I say

You can do it overnight um and she does make sure she points out that it is vitally important that you do give it chance to rest otherwise Cates don’t rise okay so not IM I tell about madins but I might save that and what I’m going to do

Now like I say we’re now covering that and resting so here we are several hours later partly oops get that on that help partly because I suddenly discovered when I turn the oven on to preheat it after about an hour and a half of letting this thing

Chill all the power gone off and I think the other’s blown up so it is sort of working but I’m have to do a bit of a fiddle um so we’ll have to wait and see what happens but here is a melin tray and what I’ve done is I’ve greased it

With butter and then giving it a spring of uh what’s name flour now I’m using a Piping Bag simply because obviously these are quite small and we want to about 3/4 fill these um molds if you like um which is a bit difficult cuz it batter is quite thick I think I might

Have overfilled the first couple and then we’re going to bake it initially for 6 minutes at 220 after 6 minutes and this is fan after 6 minutes we reduce it down to 200 and we’ll be cooking it for another well if you’re doing mini ones it’s another 2 minutes if you’re doing bigger

Ones um it’s another 4 minutes um I suspect these are classed as many given I’ve got that batter left so put back make everywhere so in the oven 6 minutes temperature down extra couple of minutes till they’re done and then when we take them out we let them cool in the

Tin that’s the madins um that’s no recipe they come out a bit darker I don’t know whether it’s the the metal all I think it’s stainless um mold um and it’s retaining a lot of the heat I think because the bottoms weren’t although I did particularly in the first batch before I

Managed to readjust temperature they did bulge out an awful lot on the bottom and so some of them did actually have to do a little bit trim um so melins uh madins mlin I keep one called meline because that’s how it spelled melins um essentially took off

During the 17 60s and they believe the part of the reason for that was CU they used to sell them on commercy ra station and so of course it spread out all over the place and it’s highly likely they exported him down to Paris um by the end of the 19

Century melins were considered like the diet if you like for the French Bourgeois so anyway try this one was one of the first batches it’s a little bit darker around the edges so I link this one only really little hint of lemon I think in h might be better with

A bit more if you actually want lemon on t a little bit like a basic plain cupcake in texture but you got this sort of crust on the outside um really these wen’t eating straight away can be Mak some coffee um but there you go very very nice’s just

Going to try one ready wait back do something I’ve g a light dusting with um IC and sugar you don’t necessarily normally do that it’s just a fact that I thought it might help improve especially the little dark on but there you go from manon’s a voila cookbook French m