Madeleines
The hump on the back of a madeleine is not decoration but proof that everything was done right. It comes from thermal shock: cold batter goes into a very hot oven, onto a preheated tray, the edges set instantly, and the centre — still liquid — has nowhere to go but up. Without proper chilling the hump is small or missing, and you get ordinary flat little cakes.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Brown butter 10 min
- Batter 15 min
- Chilling 90 min
- Baking 25 min
Step by step
0 / 8 doneBrown the butter
Melt the butter and keep cooking until the foam subsides and the base turns hazelnut brown with a toasted nut smell. Take it off immediately — brown to burnt is a matter of seconds. Pour into a bowl and cool.
Ingredients: 130 g butter · 2 pcs eggs · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp honey · 130 g plain flour · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Brown sediment and a nutty smell — off the heat.Whisk the eggs with sugar and honey
Whisk the eggs with the sugar, honey and a pinch of salt for 4 minutes, until pale and doubled. The honey is not only for flavour — it is hygroscopic and helps hold moisture, so the madeleines dry out more slowly.
Ingredients: 130 g butter · 2 pcs eggs · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp honey · 130 g plain flour · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Fold in the flour and zest
Sift in the flour with the baking powder and fold with a spatula along with the lemon zest. Stop the moment the flour disappears — developed gluten gives rubbery cakes instead of tender ones.
Ingredients: 130 g butter · 2 pcs eggs · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp honey · 130 g plain flour · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Fold in the butter in three additions
Pour in the cooled brown butter in three additions, folding after each. Added all at once it combines poorly and leaves greasy streaks in the batter.
Ingredients: 130 g butter · 2 pcs eggs · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp honey · 130 g plain flour · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Chill for at least an hour
Cover and refrigerate for 90 minutes, or overnight if you can. This is the step that makes the hump: the batter must be genuinely cold, not merely cool. The flour also hydrates fully, giving a finer crumb.
Ingredients: 130 g butter · 2 pcs eggs · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp honey · 130 g plain flour · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Heat the oven with a tray, chill the tin
Heat the oven to 210°C with an empty baking tray on the middle shelf. Grease the tin with soft butter, dust with flour, tap off the excess and put it in the fridge. The cold tin with cold batter goes onto the hot tray — the sudden heat from below is the other half of the thermal shock.
Ingredients: 20 g butter · 2 tbsp plain flour
Butter, flour, tap out — the shell pattern must stay sharp.Spoon in mounds and do not spread
Drop a heaped tablespoon of cold batter (about 20 g) into the centre of each shell, filling them three quarters full. Do not spread it — the batter levels itself in the oven, and spread out it loses the depth in the middle so the hump never rises.
Ingredients: 130 g butter · 2 pcs eggs · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp honey · 130 g plain flour · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Bake 9 minutes, dropping the heat
Set the tin on the hot tray and bake 4 minutes at 210°C, then drop to 180°C for another 5 minutes, until the edges are golden and the hump has risen clearly. Turn them out at once — left in a cooling tin the bases go damp. With a 12-hole tin bake in two rounds: wipe the tin, let it cool, grease and flour it again, and bring the oven back to 210°C.
Ingredients: 130 g butter · 2 pcs eggs · 100 g sugar · 1 tbsp honey · 130 g plain flour · 1 tsp baking powder · 1 pcs lemon · 1 pinch salt
Hump risen, edges golden — turn out immediately.
Before you start
Eat them the same day
Madeleines are at their best for the first two hours, while the edges still crunch. The next day they are still good but merely a buttery cake — so bake half the batter and leave the rest in the fridge for tomorrow.
Silicone tins
They work, but the hump will be smaller — silicone conducts heat far worse than metal, and the whole mechanism depends on the edges heating fast. Always set a metal tin on a preheated tray.
Flavour variations
Orange zest with a drop of orange blossom water, ground pistachio replacing 30 g of the flour, or the tips dipped in dark chocolate. Do not add wet fruit — it weighs the batter down and the hump will not rise.
