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Sunday, October 21, 2012

Coconut Madeleines - Yum!

Darn you Pinterest and your tempting dessert pins!  I recently got obsessed with Madeleines, thanks to Pinterest, and after some extensive internet research decided to buy some madeleine pans and make some tasty treats.  Sunny approves.
While most madeleien recipes are the traditional lemon based ones, I decided to do a coconut version since I loooove all things coconut.  I used David Lebovitz's Madeleines Recipe as the base but didn't include the lemon and instead added a teaspoon of vanilla and about 1/4-1/3 cup of shredded coconut.  There are a lot of recipes out there for madeleines and I've found that making yummy and humpy madeleines requires a few basic rules:
  • Yes, you need a madeleine pan.  But madeleines are essentially just mini cakes so you can always use a different pan if all you want is the buttery cake goodness.  But the larger the pan the less you'll get that beautiful ratio of spongy inner cake and slightly crispy outer cake. 
  • Some recipes I saw online just called for stirring in the ingredients.  No.  You need to whisk the egg, sugar, and wet ingredients until it's nice and foamy (about 5 minutes).  And you then fold in the dry ingredients slowly.  It takes patience, but don't stir at this point because you need the folding to make the cake fluffy and airy.  You also have to fold in the melted butter.  
  • The dough has to be rested and chilled for at least an hour, preferably a bit longer.  The cold dough helps make the coveted hump and the resting helps.  The resting is also required so that the gluten has time to relax and air bubbles can work their way out.
  • Buttering and flouring the pans helps.  I have nonstick pans but when I didn't butter and lightly flour the pan it browned unevenly.  
  • Chilling the pan both before and after filling it with the batter helps to create the hump.  The hump is created by the cold pan and cold batter getting hit quickly by the high heat in the oven. 
  • Spoon approximate amounts of batter into the molds and don't spread it.  Just leave it plopped in the middle.  It'll even out.

Ok, so those are the few things I realized as I've made a few batches of madeleines.  So onto the coconut madeleines!  I kept the oven light on so that I could see them bake.  Since it's such a short baking time (especially for the mini madeleine pans, which are what I got - approximately 8-12 minutes for those), I didn't want to risk overbaking them.  It was fun watching the humps rise!
Finally, they were done!  You know they're done when the edges are lightly browned and when the cake rises back up after a gentle press.  I had one madeleine on the edge that acted as my tester.  It got all misshapen from my early and eager finger pushing but as soon as I saw the cake bounce back up I knew it was ready!  Look at my lovely humps (hehe)!
The pug knew something was up.
These suckers popped out nice and easy thanks to the light buttering and flouring of the pans.
Sunny looks so sad here.  She hates it when I spend a lot of time cooking/baking, especially since she has to smell all these yummy foods and doesn't get a taste!
Again, look at my hump!
 And then I arranged them all nice and pretty on my plate.  Of course a few ended up in my belly while I was arranging them.
Poor Sunny didn't get any madeleines.
I love you buttery, coconut madeleine.
Nom, nom nom!
 Sorry Sunny, you can't eat any madeleines, but here's one as a hat!
Nothing's better than noshing on some yummy madeleines on the couch, with a lil pug on your lap.

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