These French classic small cakes are a perfect accompaniment to tea or coffee. Quick and easy recipe that doesn’t require a stand mixer!

I love madeleines because they’re so quick to whip up. I make my one with brown butter, but you can always just opt for melted butter if you don’t like the taste of brown butter. I do love the lemon and vanilla flavour and if I don’t have a lemon handy, I just skip them and bump up the vanilla.

Brown butter or beurre noisette gives food better flavour, so I highly recommend trying to make this with brown butter. If you have never tried making brown butter, I prepared a post to guide you through the process here. Or simply watch the video below:

A few notes on madeleines:

  1. You don’t want to overbake them, because they will dry out. When you bake them the first time, keep a close eye on them, because if your oven runs hot, they might dry out.
  2. Madeleines are meant to have a scalloped front and a hump on the back. So don’t be alarmed when you see the hump rising midway through baking, it’s normal.
  3. The batter is thick. You don’t need to spread the batter in the cavity, just leave it as a mound in the middle, it will be fine.
  4. Madeleines are best served and eaten on the day. Because of their size, they stale fairly quickly.

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Difficulty: Easy Prep Time: 10 Mins Cook Time: 10 Mins Total Time: 20 Mins

Madeleines

Makes 18 standard size madeleines

Ingredients

Instructions

0/5 Instructions
  • In a large bowl sift together flour, sugar and baking powder. Make a hole in the centre.
  • In a second bowl, mix eggs, brown butter, vanilla and lemon zest. Pour into the hole in the centre of the dry ingredients. then mix until just combined.
  • Butter your Madeleine pan. Madeleine pans come in different sizes, standard and mini. This recipe makes 18 standard madeleines. Fill each cavity up to 3/4 full then chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour, up to 12 hours.
  • Preheat oven to 190C. Place the chilled tray in the middle of your oven and bake madeleines for 10 minutes or just until the pastry is set. The tops should have humps but shouldn't be browned. Take out and cool for 5 minutes then turn over on a rack. If you only have one pan, you need to do this again until you use up all the batter.
  • Serve warm, sprinkled with a little icing sugar or dipped in chocolate. Keep in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Notes

  1. You don't want to overbake them, because they will dry out. When you bake them the first time, keep a close eye on them, because if your oven runs hot, they might dry out.
  2. Madeleines are meant to have a scalloped front and a hump on the back. So don't be alarmed when you see the hump rising midway through baking, it's normal.
  3. The batter is thick. You don't need to spread the batter in the cavity, just leave it as a mound in the middle, it will be fine.
  4. Madeleines are best served and eaten on the day. Because of their size, they stale fairly quickly.

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about brown butter, so I decided to talk about it so I could share some insight on why I use it in my recipes instead of normal melted butter.

Beurre noisette, or commonly referred to as brown butter, is the French culinary term for melted butter that is toasted until it is hazelnut brown. But that opens it up to more questions like, how do I know if it’s hazelnut brown, or is it roasted hazelnut or raw hazelnut? And just saying brown butter–I realised from first-hand experience–doesn’t mean people would understand what you’re talking about, especially if the person reading your recipe started baking today.

 

So let’s dig deeper and understand what beurre noisette is on this short post. I hope after you read this, I have taken the guesswork out of whether your butter has transformed to beurre noisette, and if it’s worth taking the extra time to brown your melted butter.

Let’s get into the science: The browning of food is called a Maillard reaction. This is a chemical reaction that occurs between the amino acids and the sugars in food when heat is applied. It happens when you sear meat, brew beer, toast bread, roast marshmallows and of course, brown butter. The list goes on, but you get the point. However, this process should not be confused with caramelisation.

 

A Maillard reaction creates new flavour compounds. The process is actually many sets of small reactions between amino acids and sugars where they continuously form flavour compounds, break them down and form new flavour compounds, and so on. This produces different sets of flavours and aromas to different types of food, and as I mentioned, gives it a distinctive brown colour.

 

I’ve made a video to serve as a visual aid when you start making brown butter, or beurre noisette. So no need to get anxious when you see brown butter on the ingredients list and no, you can’t get it from the shops, sorry… Watch my short video, and see how easy it is to make!