Always at this time of year I neglect my website. Not on purpose you understand; it just seems to happen year on year. I’m no late starter when it comes to anything else, its just… January. So, despite it almost being February this is my first 2021 post. Happy New Year!
I’ve written before that I eschew resolutions at this time of year. The spring equinox has me thinking about changes, new starts and determination rather than a grey and bleary 1st Jan. January (and February come to think of it) does not work for me for new starts, but it is good timing for gathering yourself together, looking after you and yours and starting to think about spring and those new shoots, literal or metaphorical.
So, while I’m in R&R mode, these little madeleines fit nicely. They are a twist on a traditional patisserie recipe, but incorporate winter fruit and indulgent chocolate. I’ve coloured my white chocolate to match the Pink Lady apples I used, but you don’t have to colour the chocolate at all, and if you don’t like white chocolate, then feel free to dip them in your favourite milk or dark instead.
Notes
I’ve included the little step that gets the chocolate finish looking like its sculpted! Once you get the hang of turning them out without breaking the chocolate (this depends on the trickiness of the mould you own) you’ll be making them perfect all the time.
Equipment
- Small saucepan
- Madeleine moulds (any mould will do but silicone ones are easier for this recipe)
- Spoon, flexible spatula, scales, knife and cutting board, pastry brush
- Medium bowl
- Small heatproof bowl
- Cooling rack
Ingredients
- 125g unsalted butter
- 1 sweet eating apple – I used a Pink Lady apple
- 2 medium – large eggs
- 150g plain flour
- 145g caster sugar
- Pinch of salt
- 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice
- 300g of white chocolate
- Food colouring
- Plus – extra butter, about 30 g, for the moulds
Method
- Melt the extra butter and paint the madeleine moulds with it using the pastry brush. Place the moulds in the freezer
- Melt the 125g of butter in the saucepan over a medium heat and then immediately take off the heat
- Whisk the eggs and sugar until they turn light and fluffy and have increased in volume
- Folding gently with a spatula, now add the flour, salt, lemon juice and melted butter until combined. be careful not to over mix
- Chop the apple (removing the core but keeping the skin) into small dice and immediately add to the mix
- Chill the mix in the fridge for 30-60 minutes. This is an important step for madeleines
- Warm the oven to 180C fan / 200C conventional oven
- Spoon the mixture into the moulds, filling each to about two-thirds full
- Bake the madeleines for about 12-14 minutes. They should be really springy to the touch
- Leave to cool completely and remove from the moulds
- Clean the moulds and dry thoroughly
- Now melt the chocolate, adding a few drops of food colouring if you wish
- Spoon a teaspoon of melted chocolate into one of the madeleine cavities in the mould and press back in one of the madeleines, so it squeezes the chocolate around it. Repeat with all the madeleines
- Try not to jog the madeleines now and leave them to cool – you can speed up the process by putting them in the fridge
- When the chocolate is fully cold, they should slip out fairly well from the mould
- Enjoy!
This is a longer, larger loaf where it is impractical to make into a round (would be difficult to slice that large or fit into an oven). Typically with diagonal slashes, but experiment with leaf and scroll shapes.
A real old traditional British shape. Potentially this developed to get a little height and spread (if slashes are used) without support during the rise. These are hand shaped entirely. Split your dough into 2/3 and 1/3 pieces and roll both into a ball. Place the small ball on top of the larger one and using one or two fingers push down, dead centre, to the table so that you are fixing the top to the bottom. This can have vertical slashes all the way round or left plain.
This is less shaped by hand and more by the tin: putting the dough into a loaf tin ensures straight sides, ends and bottom. The most common way of doing this is to let the dough rise as normal then the second proof is done in the tin. Following the second rise, draw one large, long slash across the top prior to putting it in the oven. I have read old recipes though where the dough is split into two and the first rise is done separately. Then, after knocking back the two halves are rolled into fat sausage shapes and lain side by side in the tin. I’ve not tried this, but I suspect the bread would tear in half easily.
Less a shape and more just an elaborated set of slashes. Shape as for a rounded cob loaf, then after the second proof draw at least three parallel slashes, evenly space out across the top of the bread. Turn the loaf 90˚, and do an equal number of slashes, so creating a set of squares, or the chequerboard effect.
This shape dates back to its massive popularity in Victorian times and was particularly eaten as breakfast bread rolls. So named, as it mimicked the rolls served in Viennese tea houses. It is shaped with softly tapered ends like a very short baguette. After proving, roll out to a sausage shape and tuck the bread over on itself lengthways once or twice and pinch the bread together at the seam to seal. The seam should be baked on the bottom. Apply a long slash either straight down the length of the bread or slightly at an angle. It can also be dusted with poppy seeds or linseeds etc before the slash is made (as in the above picture of my breakfast rolls).
This is a long stick of dough, prepared similarly to a baguette with is then cut and splayed on alternate sides. It’s easiest to snip the cuts with scissors rather than use a blade. It is supposed to resemble an ear of corn. It’s a lovely tear and share bread – each ‘ear’ forms an individual roll. I personally love this loaf shape and make it often.
Very similar to the spiral but keep each end of the long tube of dough a little slimmer than the middle. Take one of the ends and roll it round until it reaches the mid point of the dough, then take the other end and wind it in the opposite direction to meet in the middle. Produces an elaborate S shape. Common in roll shaping too and is one of the typical shapes in Scandinavian St Lucia saffron buns (such as Swedish/Norwegian lussekatt).
Wreaths can be made in many ways. As long as it results in a ring of dough, it’s a wreath, even by just joining a long plain strand of dough together or using balls of dough. Kringles and slashed plaits, a circular pain de epi and 3+ multi strand plaits are all elaborate and fun wreaths to make. Other special festival wreaths include those with fillings but I won”t include those here (as I’m excluding filled breads). A wreath is usually cut into individual portion sizes and used as you would a roll or chunk of bread rather than finely sliced. Alternatively, the whole thing can be sliced in two horizontally and filled like a giant bagel, from which individual portions are taken. Typically a celebratory or show-off bake.
When you think of brioche, you automatically think sweet breakfast rolls or pretty marbled loaves (mmm sliced and made into eggy bread/cinnamon toast). But it doesn’t have to be sweet – a savoury or plainer brioche is a lovely, fluffy, bouncy thing and there are probably more savoury versions than sweet; it’s just what we tend to see sold or made most often. What you may come across is the description ‘enriched bread’ rather than savoury brioche.
You know why I love Madeleines so much? Shh, don’t tell anyone but they are soo quick and easy and people often think mistakenly they require some sort of high-level patisserie savoir-faire. Mais non.
Jars of ready-made biscuit spread from Biscoff can now be easily found in the jam and preserves section at most supermarkets, but you can make a close version yourself. I have prepared a separate recipe for a 
Ink Sugar Spice - Lynn Clark 