Vanilla French Madeleines
Enjoy the basic recipe for the homemade vanilla French madeleines, which is used to experiment with numerous flavors to create new variations of madeleines.
- Total Time: 1 hour (plus chilling time)
- Yield: 36 1x
- Category: Cakes
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: French
Ingredients
Scale
- 250 g eggs (5 eggs)
- 1 cup + 1 1/2 tbsp (250 g) granulated sugar
- 8.8 oz (250 g) butter, melted
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 1/3 tsp (12 g) honey
- 1/2 vanilla bean
- 2 tsp (10 g) baking powder
* If needed, please refer to Baking Conversion Charts.
** Want to make perfect madeleines? Grab this FREE FAQ Guide!
Instructions
- Follow this recipe with step by step photographed explanations, except adding the lemon zest.
- To make the batter, place eggs, sugar, honey and scraped seeds of half of the vanilla bean in a large bowl and beat with a hand whisk. Sift flour with baking powder using a flour sifter, add to the mixture and combine with a whisk. Add the cooled melted butter and whisk again.
- Cover the batter with a plastic film in contact and refrigerate overnight, or even better for 24 hours.
- Preheat oven to 425 F/220 C. Butter cavities of a madeleine mold: either it is a silicon one (it facilitates the removal of cakes), or it is a metal one. If you use the latter one, dust it with flour and tap any excess. Using a pastry bag, fill the cavities up to three fourth.
- Bake at 425 F/220 C for 3 minutes. Then switch off the oven for 8 to 10 minutes. The madeleines will get that famous bump on top. Turn the oven to 320 F/160 C for the other 3 to 4 minutes.
- Remove madeleines from the oven and cool them in the mold for 5 minutes. Take them out one by one, pushing each cavity from the bottom. Place cakes on the side, still in the mold, so that they completely cool.
Notes
- Replace vanilla seeds with 1/2 to 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract if you wish.
- Do not overheat butter while melting. To avoid this, turn off the heat when half of the butter is melted and mix butter off the heat. Cool the butter before incorporating it into the main preparation.
- Preheat the oven to 425 F/220 C and let it heat for 10 minutes. This step is necessary to get the bump of madeleines.
- Leave the filled mold in the fridge while preheating/heating the oven.
- Respect the temperature regimen while baking. The ideal temperature formula is 3 + 8 + 4 where "3" is 3 minutes of baking at 425 F/220 C, "8" is 8 minutes with the oven switched off and "4" is 4 minutes of baking at 320 F/160 C. You might need to test your oven and adjust this formula, for example, as 3 + 7 + 3 or something different. To adjust the last baking minutes are essential to prevent madeleines from burning.
- Bake one batch of madeleines (one mold) at a time. After each batch clean the mold, then bake the rest. Keep the batter in the fridge between batches' baking.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 madeleine
- Calories: 112
- Sugar: 7.3 g
- Sodium: 50 mg
- Fat: 6.4 g
- Saturated Fat: 3.8 g
- Carbohydrates: 12.7 g
- Fiber: 0.2 g
- Protein: 1.7 g
- Cholesterol: 41 mg