Madeleines
Recipe from Nick Malgieri

This French delight is named for Mary Magdalen (the French name for Magdalen is Madeleine). Legend has it that the recipe originated with nuns from a convent once dedicated to her; nuns traditionally raised money by baking and selling sweets.

Nick Malgieri (recipe author) describes madeleines as "little shell-shaped cakes that are one of the glories of French baking. Light, delicate, and buttery, they are surprisingly easy to prepare."

"The version of the recipe here comes from a well-known Parisian pastry shop called Lerch, owned and operated by Andre Lerch, an Alsatian pastry chef. Thanks to my dear friend, Dorie Greenspan for sharing the recipe from her book, Paris Sweets (Broadway, 2002)."

To prepare the following recipe, you will need a madeleine pan with 12 cavities. If you don't have madeleine pans, try using mini-muffin pans, the madeleines won't look the same, but they will taste as good.

3/4 cup all-purpose flour (spoon flour into dry-measure cup and level off)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
One Madeleine pan with 12 cavities, buttered and floured

Stir the flour and baking powder together and set aside.

Whisk the eggs by hand in the bowl of an electric mixer and whisk in the sugar in a stream. Whisk in the lemon zest and vanilla. Place the bowl on the mixer with the whisk attachment and whip the mixture on medium high speed for about 2 or 3 minutes, or until it is light and fluffy.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and fold in the flour mixture. After the flour has been absorbed, fold in the butter. Cover the bowl and chill the batter for 3 hours or overnight – chilling the batter helps the madeleines to develop the characteristic hump or bump on their undersides, though you can proceed immediately to the baking if you don’t care about the bump.

When you are ready to bake the madeleines, set a rack in the middle level of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees.

Use a spoon to fill the cavities in the pan about 3/4 full. Bake the madeleines for about 10 to 12 minutes, or until they are light golden and firm when pressed with a fingertip.

Invert the pan to the work surface and gently bang one of the sides of the pan to encourage the madeleines to fall out. Immediately transfer them to a rack, grooved side up, to cool completely. If some of the madeleines stick, use the point of a paring knife to loosen them around the edges.

Serving: Serve the madeleines with tea, of course.

Storage: On the day they are baked, keep them loosely covered with plastic wrap. Place in a tin or plastic container with a tight fitting cover for longer storage, but madeleines are best on the day they are baked.

VARIATION: Substitute grated orange zest for the lemon zest and add 2 teaspoons orange flower water at the same time.

Makes about a dozen 3-inch shell shaped cakes