Madeleines au miel et au beurre noisette
Honey and Brown Butter Madeleines
The real French madeleine: golden, crisp at the edges, with a proud hump on its back. A lot of brown butter and a dark honey make it unforgettable.
Equipment: 12-cup madeleine pan (bake in two batches)
Contains: milk, eggs, wheat. Always check the labels of store-bought ingredients.
Ingredients
- 2 sticks + 2 tablespoons (255 g) unsalted butter, plus more for the pan (to make about 7 1/2 oz / 210 g brown butter)
- 1 1/2 tablespoons (33 g) dark honey, such as buckwheat or chestnut
- 3 large eggs
- 2/3 cup + 1 tablespoon (137 g) granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) whole milk, room temperature
- 1 2/3 cups (208 g) all-purpose flour, plus more for the pan
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Instructions
- Brown the butter (see How to Brown Butter), stir in the honey and let cool until lukewarm.
- Whisk the eggs and sugar for 2 minutes, until pale. Whisk in the milk.
- Whisk in the flour and baking powder, then the honey butter, until smooth.
- Cover and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 2 days. The cold rest is the secret of the hump.
- Butter and flour the madeleine pan. Preheat the oven to 425°F (220°C). Fill the molds three-quarters full with the cold batter.
- Bake for 9 to 11 minutes, until golden and domed. Unmold immediately onto a rack.
Olivier's tip
Cold batter, hot oven: the shock makes the hump rise. Chill the pan between batches if you can.
A word from Paris
In the novel “In Search of Lost Time” (1913), Marcel Proust dips a madeleine in his tea, and a flood of childhood memories comes back. Ever since, the French have called any taste or smell that brings back the past “a Proust madeleine”.
French word of the day
madeleine de Proust
mad-LEN duh PROOST
a taste or smell that brings back memories
