French Madeleine Cake Recipe
Madeleines and the Ritz Hotel Paris
Madeleine cakes will forever be associated with the Ritz Hotel Paris for me. I enjoy the buttery little, melt-in-the-mouth madeleine cakes that are served alongside other biscuits and marble cake as part of my French-style afternoon tea in Salon Proust on most of my stays in Paris.
Marcel Proust who had rooms at the Ritz and regularly meet with friends at the Salon, loved madeleines, so even the white and gold porcelain tea service used in his namesake, Salon Proust, feature a golden madeleine as its emblem.
The white and gold porcelain tea service used at the Ritz is called 'The Art of Tea Collection' and is available for purchase directly from the Hotel in The Gallery (gallery of boutiques) in case you'd like to have your own tea service.
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French Madeleine Cake Recipe
After enjoying these little sweet cakes during my "French tea-time" experiences at the Hotel, I decided I needed to find myself a madeleine recipe that I could whip up easily. After trying a number of different recipes I've found this compilation (of a few different recipes) works best for me.
Ingredients
100g pure butter
3 eggs
1/3 cup caster sugar
1 tablespoon soft brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
100g self raising flour
Extra butter for greasing the tray
Small amount of plain flour for dusting the tray
Small amount of icing sugar for dusting cakes
Method
- Melt the extra butter and grease madeleine baking trays and then lightly dust with the extra plain flour
- Melt 100g butter on gentle heat then allow to cool
- When butter is cool, place in a bowl then add 1 egg at a time mixing well
- Add caster sugar, brown sugar and vanilla extract mixing well
- Add sifted self raising flour and mix
- Fill shells in tray halfway
- Bake in preheated 180° oven for 10 minutes
- Cool in baking trays, remove and then dust with icing sugar when serving
There are different views on whether your batter needs to be refrigerated before you fill your trays and bake, and if you do, for how long exactly. Some cooks even suggest placing your trays in the freezer, but while the the debate wages on this, I am a little too impatient to wait for my batter to chill for hours or even overnight, so I just don't, and my madeleines are always delicious and get eaten seriously quickly.
So if you wish to chill your batter and/or your trays and get the 'belly' of your madeleine to rise so your cake has a hump then go right ahead, but if you're just as happy as me to eat a yummy moist madeleine without a hump or 'belly' then forget this extra step and make your cakes as above. Enjoy your French madeleine cakes with our recipe.
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