Lemony Madeleines

the humpy cakes! so, i called them. distinctive to madeleines are humps on shell-like looking butter cakes. the first madeleines i had were the ones from Delifrance. never knew the actual names of the cakes until much later when i actually learnt to read food names first before buying the food. when i was younger, madeleines were common sight at my grandma's place because my aunties and uncles often frequent Delifrance, which was then quite hip and "class". with the dwindling number of deliverance outlets in Singapore, i think then-popular cafes are being quickly overtaken by more "artas, baristas-ish places and unique cafes like PS Cafe, the Marmalade Pantry, Wild Honey, etc. 


it has been a while since i ate madeleines. few weeks ago when i was researching on french recipes, i came across this classic madeleine recipe (from Julia Child of course!) and decided to give it a try. verdict? really awesome! the additions of lemon zest and lemon juice were simply amazing as they balanced the buttery taste of common madeleines sold in those chain bakeries, making you want for more. 


as it was my first attempt on madeleines, i was rather reluctant to buy the real madeleines molds which are quite costly. i baked this batch of madeleines using existing little cake molds that i have at home. different look but the same great taste! 

Lemony Madeleines


Ingredients:

• 2 ---------------------------- large eggs, beaten
• 140g ----------------------- granulated sugar
• 125g ----------------------- all purpose flour
• 113 g ---------------------- unsalted butter (plus 1 tbsp but greasing the molds)
• 1/8 tsp --------------------- salt
• 1 tbsp ---------------------- flour
• 2 tsp ----------------------- vanilla essence
• 1 tbsp ---------------------- grated lemon zest
• 3 drops -------------------- lemon juice

Method:


1. combine flour and sugar in a mixing bowl and add three quarters of the eggs. beat vigorous and form into a heavy cream. set aside for 10min
2. boil all the butter until very slight brown. take out 1 tbsp of the butter and mix well with the 1 tbsp of flour. set side this mixture
3. cool the hot melted butter over cold water but ensure that butter still remains a liquid. beat the remaining egg into the batter and stir in the cooled liquid butter. stir in salt, lemon zest and lemon juice. cover batter and refrigerate it for at least one hour.
4. grease the molds with the butter-flour mixture from step 2
5. preheat oven to 190degC. using a spoon and rubber spatula, drop a rounded tablespoonful of batter into each madeleine cup. do not spread batter to fill the mold. repeat with the remaining batter and mold. 
6. bake in the middle rack for 20 min or until slightly brownish
7. unfold and cool on a rack with hump side up

enjoy!


*off to buy the real madeleines mold! ;)

Homestyle Butter Cake for Grandma

Grandma said she likes butter cakes because they smell great and are moist enough. My mum had been asking me for quite some time to bake a butter cake for Grandma. Why did it take me so long? Simply because I THOUGHT butter cake is too simple and not challenging. What can go wrong? But I was wrong.

In search of an old-styled butter cake recipe to impress Grandma, I became confused by the recipes for "butter cakes" and those for "pound cakes". My mini research found pound cakes containing less butter to flour ratio and butter cake recipes call for milk which pound cake recipes don’t. I also suspect that some people had used the terms butter cake and pound cake interchangeably.

Regardless, my gut feel was to use a recipe with more butter. It seems to me that our grandparents' generation really enjoys more butter than us - after all, bread toast with butter and sugar, butter roasted coffee beans, traditional butter cake with butter cream......

Happily, I baked a home-style butter cake for Grandma. I was so sure she would be full of praises for me....

Butter Cake

Ingredients

• 250 g butter, softened 
• 1 tsp vanilla extract 
• 260 g caster sugar 
• 3 eggs 
• 335 g self-raising flour 
• 180 ml milk 

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180degC. Grease deep 22-cm round cake pan. (I used rectangular loaf tins instead, which is why there were cracks on the cake surface) 
2. Beat butter and sugar using an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Stir in sifted flour and milk, in two batches. 
3. Spread mixture into pan and bake for about 1 hour. Stand in cake pan for 5 min before turning, top side up onto a wire rack to cool. 

The outcome: 

Dear said: "moist and nice butter fragrance!"
Grandma: "not bad........"
My mum said it was not spongy enough...
Then, I knew it's gotta be pound cake that Grandma likes....