TWD: Traditional Madeleines Rewind

Whew! Tuesday’s with Dorie snuck up on me this week. I have a long list of excuses why the Mixed Berry Tart that was chosen by Beth of “Our Sweet Life” didn’t work out for me, but I’ll spare you. (Sorry, Beth! it does look delish.)

Instead, I made use of my new mini-madeleine pan and whipped up a previous recipe, Traditional Madeleines, chosen by Tara of “Smells Like Home”.

It seems there is quite an art to perfect madeleine making. An art I don't profess to know or understand. But I gave it the old college try anyway.

Are my pans too full? I wasn't sure.

From what I understand, the measure of a perfect madeleine is the characteristic "bump" on the back side. I decided in advance that I wouldn’t get upset if I didn’t get the bump. Good thing, because madeleine and her friends were indeed bumpless. (Maybe they need to start working out with Fergie.)

The verdict? Eh, I wasn’t in love with them. But, it might have been a case of bad baking and not the recipe… because look what I found at the bottom of the bowl once I got done spooning the batter. The butter! D'oh!

Apparently I didn’t fold the butter in well enough and it all sunk to the bottom of the pan. And there it stayed, hardening during its overnight stay in the refrigerator.

Ah well, you can't win 'em all.

I'll probably try them again. Everyone else at TWD seemed to love them, so I'll have another go at it one day. When I do, I think I'll try Pim's recipe.

One bit of good news… I think I came up with a good way of greasing the pan to prevent sticking! I tried three methods:

- greasing with butter then dusting with flour (recommended)
- greasing with home-made “pan prep” (recipe follows)
- greasing with home-made “pan prep” and then dusting with flour

The home-made pan prep and flour was best, there was no sticking at all. Next best was pan prep by itself, followed by butter and flour.

Home-made Pan Prep
1 part flour
1 part shortening
1 part vegetable oil

Mix together well until lumps are mostly gone.

I also use this exclusively for cakes. It keeps well and is a cinch to make. You can also buy the commercial product from CK Products and it works perfectly too. In fact, this is where I first learned about it.

OK, gotta run. See 'ya next week...

P.S. the madeleine recipe can be found on Tara’s site HERE.