Comfort food: cacao madeleines

 Our 4 kittens just before the split  
Our 4 kittens just before the split  

I consider most of what I cook as comfort food because I only cook what we love and we indulge in some delicious breakfast everyday. But today I needed something special for tea, something sweet and warm, because the weather was chilly, because we had a short night and a long day, because I was sad we split our 4 kittens into 2 groups to deliver to their new homes and one group has left already. So I decided to prepare madeleines. I used the recipe I presented before, but slightly changed it: I added plenty of cacao powder, refrigerated 90min and cooked all the time at 200. I managed to obtain pretty bumps ans the taste of cacao was well present which is not often the case with cacao taste sweets.
Now it’s time we go deliver our last two kittens. En route to Hayama! It’s gonna be a long trip for them!

Looking for the perfect madeleine recipe: may be I’ve found it!!!

Well, an other rainy Sunday to test some madeleine recipe and I think this time it’s the right one. At first I was a bit reluctant in trying it because it has a lot more butter in it, but so far it’s the one that guarantees the best bumps and the perfect consistency. So, too bad for the butter outage that we still have in Japan, this is the recipe I will adopt as a base for my madeleines from now on!

I found it on the blog Piroulie (http://piroulie.canalblog.com/archives/2008/12/03/10442707.html) and it’s a Lenotre recipe. I always do smaller amounts so I used: 100g of flour, 85g of butter, 40g of brown caster sugar, 2 eggs, 3g of baking powder, a pinch of salt, a large table spoon of honey, then whatever you want for flavoring. This time I used neroli. I first melt the butter in a little pan. Then in a bowl I mix the eggs, the sugar, the salt and the honey, and batter well until a foam starts forming. Then I add the flour, the baking powder and continue to mix. Finally I add the butter and the flavoring and refrigirated for 30min. The oven is preheated at 230deg and as soon as I insert the madeleines I drop the temperature to 200deg as Piroulie recommended. After about 5-7min I again lower to 180deg, then the bumps appear nice and big! I bake until almost all golden, and remove from the mold as soon as I take it out. Quite simple and really delicious!!

Cardamom and vanilla madeleines

I am still looking for the perfect madeleine recipe, so I have tried a new one. And because it’s getting cold and I wanted something really sweet I opted for adding vanilla and cardamom to the madeleines and finished with a sugar frost where I added cinnamon. 

Taste-wise the cardamom and vanilla is always amazing, the additional cinnamon in the sugar frost, made the final taste something like sweet chai, which was exactly what I wanted. As for the madeleine, I won’t share with you my recipe because I didn’t find it satisfactory enough. The delicious taste was unfortunately not accompanied by the madeleines typical shape and was disappointing in that respect. A good reason to try again!!!

Madeleines

Since my last trial of madeleines this summer I didn’t had te time to get my molds and to try again, but now that days are really getting shorter and cooler the tea-time after gardening all afternoon requires a little complement and madeleines are perfect for that. So I went to buy some molds to Kappabashi street the other day and I just tried to make some madeleines again. I picked a different recipe than last time but I am not completely satisfied with the shape. They get a little bump, but not as big as I expeted. Taste-wise: perfect. Let me work a little on the recipe before sharing it. But if you have a good one let me know!!

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