Quick Summary: Madeleines are made of just a few pastry basics: butter, eggs, sugar, flour, and a rising agent (usually baking powder). Many recipes also add a little milk for moisture and flavorings such as lemon zest, honey, or vanilla. The butter is often browned for a nutty taste, and the batter rests before baking to create the signature hump. In short, madeleines are small French sponge cakes built from butter, eggs, sugar, and flour.
This post is a part of my Madeleine series in tribute to this iconic French pastry and all that it means, from its fascinating history, choosing the right pan, all the secrets of the authentic madeleine hump, and storage suggestions, you name it!
If you are a baker, you know that making madeleines is all about the ingredients. If you want to make perfect French madeleines every time, you need the right ingredients.
This blog post will tell you everything you need to know about how baking ingredients affect making madeleines.
Ingredients for madeleines
The ingredients in a real madeleine recipe are pastry basics: flour, butter, sugar, eggs, baking powder...
Here is a guide to the principal madeleine ingredients you will find in the bakery aisle of your favorite grocery store.
A great deal can be said about the quality of raw materials; what's important here, though?
Choose high-quality butter for this classic treat.
Our top-of-the-range madeleine, the Royale, contains 25% butter.
Josette Grojean, from the store À La Cloche Lorraine
Butter
Butter in baking
Butter brings flavor, taste, tenderness, and volume. The flavor given to your baked goods by butter is very distinct; it can't be mimicked.
French butter madeleines are examples of butter-flavored cakes with real top-quality butter.
Butter plays two crucial roles in the technical aspect of baking:
The first role of butter in baking is to increase friability. For example, butter helps waterproof the preparation in contact with flour particles and thus increases the friability of dry pasta during cooking.
The second role is that butter also has plasticity, so you can work without changing its texture.
Butter blocks gluten formation because of its structure and density.
This is why it is necessary in certain doughs, such as Breton shortbread, and why it must be incorporated at the end into brioche doughs.
What happens more specifically? The butter coats the flour's proteins and starch, then essentially prevents water from penetrating the flour and forming gluten.
This is also why, when you prepare a shortcrust pastry by hand, you should mix the butter and flour well to make shortbread.
Butter and madeleines
Butter is an essential madeleine ingredient responsible for these little sponge cakes' flavor, taste, and texture.
According to food historians, the madeleines of Marcel Proust, who "cemented [madeleines] into French hearts and culture", were quite dry.
Limiting the butter, eggs, and sugar in a recipe is necessary to make these little cakes less moist.
The author of the famous 19th-century cookbook La Cuisinière de la campagne et de la ville, Louis-Eustache Audot, adds butter in a 1:2 weight ratio to flour. As a result, his madeleines indeed have a lighter, drier texture.
Today, most French chefs use equal amounts of butter and flour.
Moreover, Philippe Conticini adds a small amount of neutral oil (such as grapeseed oil). This makes modern madeleines richer, softer, and moister.
Historically, traditional madeleines of Commercy are made with brown butter ("beurre noisette" in French), which is butter heated until it turns brown and develops a nutty flavor.
Roger Pizey, the author of the book "World Class Cakes: 250 Classic Recipes from Boston Cream Pie to Madeleines and Muffins", and Belén from Belula Cuisine & More also suggest using brown butter in making French madeleines.
Choosing the butter
Butter does make everything better, especially madeleines.
Nowadays, there are many types of butter to choose from: European, American-made European-style, cultured, artisanal, clarified, flavored, etc.
So which butter should you use when making madeleines? The answer is European, or European-style butter made with higher fat content.
Why? Because butter isn't just fat; it also adds flavor.
Unsalted butter or salted butter?
Most madeleine recipes call for unsalted butter unless otherwise specified. Still, can you use salted or semi-salted butter?
Let's look at the difference between the three.
Unsalted butter is made after churning the cream without added salt.
Semi-salted butter contains between 0.5 and 3% salt.
Salted butter has a salt rate higher than 3%. Salted butter is a specialty of Britany where it is called "amann."
Many chefs prefer to make madeleines with semi-salted butter, where a small quantity of salt enhances the flavors and counterbalances the sweetness.
Can you make madeleines with salted butter? Technically, yes, and there are French recipes for salted butter madeleines.
Melted butter or softened butter?
Another debate that agitates all madeleine lovers is about the state of butter: should it be softened or melted?
The quick answer is it depends. Melted butter gives your baked madeleines a denser texture, while softened butter delivers a lighter, airier consistency and softer madeleines. Want to be the smartest? Mix the two!
Eggs
Eggs in baking
An egg comprises two parts: the egg white and the egg yolk. The first mainly contains water and very little protein, while the yolk contains fat and protein.
What role do eggs play in baking?
Egg whites trap air when whipped. And they keep this air while baking.
This is the secret of many cakes, for example, sponge cake, which is soft thanks to the air. Egg whites also give structure, using sugar as in meringues.
Egg yolks give color and flavor and work as a binder, for example, in custards. Yolks also trap the air, but less than the egg whites.
Egg whites coagulate at 143°F (62°C), forming a rigid, elastic, translucent gel, while egg yolks coagulate around 154°F (68°C) and provide the binder.
The lipids in egg yolks help fix aromas and contribute to coloring under heat because of the egg pigments.
Room temperature or chilled eggs?
Using eggs at room temperature is essential in madeleine baking. When all the baking ingredients are at the same temperature, they come together more easily.
Make sure to bring eggs to the counter to get them to room temperature.
But why wait? One of the most common questions readers have is, "How do I quickly bring my eggs up to room temperature so they are ready for baking?"
Well, there is a little trick. All it takes is a few minutes in a bowl filled with warm water. Then, place the eggs in the shells for 5 minutes; your eggs will be ready to use.
Sugar
Sugar in baking
Sugar is a flavor enhancer, thanks to its sweetening power. Because it dissolves in water and with heat, sugar dissolves quickly in preparations.
Sugar brings a sweet taste to your goods, but it does more than that. It adds smoothness when blanched with egg yolks, crispiness to shortbread, and softens acidic flavors.
It increases the coagulation temperature of the eggs. This explains why you can cook pastry cream or custard at a higher temperature.
Sugar is also used to color in cooking (think of caramel).
It gives structure to your baked goods and traps the air, as in meringue, for example, or soft cakes.
Finally, it lowers the freezing temperature of the water. This is why it is essential in ice creams and sorbets to prevent them from becoming blocks of marble.
Sugar and madeleines
Sugar is another madeleine recipe ingredient. But what type of sugar should you use?
The answer, again: it depends. While Louis-Eustache Audot, Roger Pizey, and Pierre Hermé use caster sugar, Sebastien Rouxel goes for a mixture of caster and brown sugar.
Another French chef, Philippe Conticini, often replaces caster sugar with light brown muscovado sugar that brings a toffee-like taste.
You can experiment with the different types of sugar (granulated sugar, golden brown, muscovado, or demerara sugar) to give your madeleines an interesting flavor and color.
But keep in mind that they will taste slightly different depending on what you choose.
Flour
Flour in baking
Flour is an almost vital ingredient in baking. It comes from the grinding of wheat grains and contains starch grains.
The difference between the flours mostly comes from the extraction rate.
Flour gives texture (think of pasta) because the starch contains "gels" when heated with water, which trap air and allow the cake's texture to be retained even after it cools.
Flour plays an essential role in the elasticity of your cake batters or bread doughs, thanks to the gluten.
The more you work the bread dough, the more the flour forms gluten, and the more elastic the dough. This is why a broken dough is little worked, unlike brioche.
Does the flour give a flavor? Yes, because the longer you bake the dough or batter, the more the flour will be roasted and the more flavor it will provide.
A nicely golden pastry will have a more pungent scent than a completely white pastry. Also, using other flours brings a different flavor.
Flour also gives density and structure. The more flour you add to a dough, the more packed it becomes. Too much flour results in a dry, stuffy pastry.
Flour in madeleine making
The authentic French madeleine recipe calls for T55 flour, which has medium protein content (9.4%) and 0.55% mineral content.
These characteristics provide the perfect fermentation and rising of the dough.
French T55 flour is equivalent to American all-purpose flour, type 0 Italian flour, and Euro 550 flour.
Should you sift the flour to make madeleines? Yes, you should sift it to make sure that there are no lumps.
More importantly, sifting flour with baking powder helps combine them and mix evenly with other ingredients.
Milk
Milk is used in madeleines to add moisture and give the crumb a little more softness. It loosens the batter slightly and helps carry the flavors, so the cakes stay tender rather than dry.
The most obvious example is yeast dough: if you add milk instead of water in classic bread dough, you will get a much softer crumb and crust reminiscent of buns.
The fat in the milk helps preserve the aromas, so the scents develop further.
Not all madeleine recipes call for milk, but some do. French chef Philippe Conticini uses semi-skimmed milk because it contains 97% water, adding moisture to his sweet creations.
Rising agent
Leavening agents make the dough rise and lighten it. Baking powder is a crucial element of the classic madeleine recipe because it helps form the lovely hump on top of the madeleines during baking.
How much baking powder should you use?
Most chefs, such as Philippe Contichini and Cédric Grolet, add baking powder at 1/20 of the amount of flour used in a recipe.
David Lebovitz uses a bit less and even recommends using baking powder only if needed.
Be aware that baking powder can be kept for a very long time, but not forever.
Since it is sensitive to moisture and humidity, both opened and unopened, it has a shelf life of 6 months to 1 year.
To avoid flat madeleines, test that your baking powder is still active. To do so, spoon ½ teaspoon into a glass and pour ¼ cup/60 ml of boiling water.
It should bubble up right away. If it does, the baking powder is good to use; if it doesn't, discard it and purchase a new tin.
For madeleines to rise well in the oven, baking powder mustn't be activated too early.
This happens when hot melted butter is poured into the batter. The heat activates the powder, which means your madeleines will no longer swell while baking.
So wait until the melted butter cools to 120°F (50°C), then add it to the batter.
Other sweeteners
Honey is often added to madeleines. Chefs Sebastien Rouxel and Philippe Conticini claim that honey increases the moisture and flavor of the madeleines.
It also brings just the right amount of sugar and a pleasant aftertaste, the one that makes you want to bite into a madeleine again and again.
Flavors
Classic French madeleines are made with citrusy additions which accentuate the buttery taste. A hint of lemon is essential in madeleine baking.
Pierre Hermé, for example, uses lemon zest, Roger Pizey adds orange zest, and Audot uses a combination of orange flower water and lemon zest.
Philippe Conticini varies the taste of his perfect madeleines by using the zest of finger citron or the Buddha's Hand, lime, or lemon. Sebastien Rouxel suggests adding 1 to 2 drops of lemon oil.
These little cakes can also be glazed with sugar and lemon glaze.
How to make madeleines without lemon? The answer is simple: use vanilla extract or vanilla bean seeds.
Salt
A tiny amount of salt is used even in baking: it brings out flavor. It also balances pastries that are a little too sweet.
Moreover, it helps in preservation. Finally, it helps homogenize the dough's color.
Some madeleine recipes call for salt, some use semi-salted butter, and others don't require salt at all.
FAQ
What are madeleines made of?
Madeleines are made of butter, eggs, sugar, and flour, plus a rising agent such as baking powder. Many recipes add a little milk and flavorings like lemon zest, honey, or vanilla. The butter is often browned for a nutty, caramel note.
Why is milk used in madeleines?
Milk is used in madeleines to add moisture and softness to the crumb. It loosens the batter slightly and helps carry the flavors, keeping the little cakes tender instead of dry. Not every recipe uses it, but many do.
What is a madeleine?
A madeleine is a small, shell-shaped French sponge cake baked in a scalloped mold. It has a light, buttery crumb and a distinctive raised hump on top, which comes from resting the batter and baking it in a hot oven.
Do madeleines have baking powder?
Most modern madeleine recipes use a small amount of baking powder as the rising agent, which helps create the signature hump. Traditional versions rely more on well-beaten eggs and a good rest in the fridge for lift.
What flour is best for madeleines?
All-purpose flour (plain flour) is the standard choice for madeleines. It has enough protein for structure while keeping the crumb tender. Sifting it helps give a light, even texture.
Conclusion
Nothing is simpler than making the best French madeleines using pastry basics, the baking ingredients most people already have at home.
The key is top-quality butter, fresh eggs, fresh baking powder, and the zest of an organic, untreated lemon.
Madeleine recipes
Madeleines are classically elegant French cakes, but it is not always easy to know how they are made.
I hope this article helps you make your next batches.
If you are looking for the best French madeleines with the authentic hump, grab an error-free recipe below.
Also, enjoy the twisted recipes on traditional madeleines. Happy baking!
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