Madeleine cake

ingredients for madeleine cake

It's a beautiful rainy morning here today with a temperature in the low 50s, a very autumnal day.  This morning I have made brioche, and I have snickerdoodles going into the oven soon, and I just pulled out madeleine cake.  Now, this cake is not exactly like traditional madeleines, the small little cakes with a bump on them that are spongy and light.  This is a spongy cake but it has more density and so is not really the same.  It is a wonderful cake to eat plain or with fruit or cream or ..... well, it's simply very good served a variety of ways.

madeleine cake - glucose and butter and milk

Butter and glucose (or corn syrup) are heated and left to cool after a little milk is added.  It must be only warm to the touch.

madeleine cake - eggs and sugar beaten for several minutes

Eggs and sugar are whisked for several minutes until the volume has increased significantly.  Lots of eggs here means a rich dense cake.  (Its rather a hypnotic thing to watch eggs increase in volume as they are whisked for so long.  It's magical, sometimes, what different ingredients are capable of.)

Some of the egg and sugar mixture is whisked into the now-only-warm butter and glucose, and lemon juice is added as well.  This is going to give a wonderful delicate flavor to the finished cake.

madeleine cake - folding in dry ingredients

Dry ingredients (simply flour and baking powder) are folded into the remaining egg and sugar mixture.  And finally everything else that was already combined with the butter and glucose is folded in after that.

madeleine cake ready for the oven

It's all baked in a quarter-sheet pan.  It's very liquidy at this point, but thick enough that it must be spread with an offset spatula just to help level out the surface and give you a nice cake that has the same thickness across.  I actually neglected that leveling bit today as I happened to get a text from one of my piano students asking for some advice on some Mozart and so I was distracted and simply placed it into the oven as I was responding.  Oh, well.  It will still taste just as good.  Don't let imperfections get in the way.

madeleine cake fresh from the oven

When it comes out it is a nice golden color on top and a skewer inserted will show that it is done evenly throughout.  The picture above shows that it is just a bit thinner on the far end - that's from my not taking the time to level it out.  But that's a very minor thing.  Nothing to worry about.  It still has a nice even bake throughout.

madeleine cake slices plain and with wild blueberries

Let it cool completely before running a plastic blade around the edge of the cake, and then flip it over on a tray, re-flip it back on another tray and now you have it upright and ready to slice.  I usually slice off the edges (to be used for just about anything where bits of cake crumble might be nice like ice cream or a parfait) and then cut rectangular pieces.  You can cut a variety of shapes with this, and it's especially easy if it's chilled first.  Top with a little fruit or cream or soft ice cream, and you have something very nice to enjoy.  This is spongy and dense (especially when chilled) and has a wonderful light lemony scent and flavor.  I like plain or topped.  Either way it's excellent.  And a perfect thing to enjoy on a nice rainy morning.