How to make Madeleines de commercy?!
How to make Madeleines de commercy?
When I bake something new, my kitchen is more like an experimental lab. Once I tried to made Madeleines de commercy but they didnt worked. I did as it said in recipes, but I dont know what was wrong. Can anyone please explain how to make them?
Answers:
try a new recipe
Madeleines de Commercy
3 eggs
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon orange flower water
4 Tablespoons soft butter
1/2 cup all purpose flour
Preheat oven to 350°
1. Butter 20 (or 24, depending on the size) madeleine tins.
2. Combine the eggs and sugar and beat until pale in color.
3. Stir in the orange flower water and butter.
4. Sift in the flour and fold in gently.
5. Divide the batter among the molds, filling them 3/4 full.
6. Bake for 15 minutes or until the madeleines have risen and are very lightly browned.
7. Turn out onto rack and allow to cool.
To Serve:
Dust lightly with confectioner's sugar just before serving
Any classic from any national cuisine ends up in an almost endless number of variant readings, but it has been the Madeleine's misfortune that the variants in *method* have not travelled outside France as readily as the recipe as a whole has.
Recipes of Madeleines de Commercy in *English* almost invariably use the mixing method, blending the ingredients, the eggs and sugar of which first. That is not the most successful, particularly where the use of orange blossom water is involved. The great chef and teacher, Henri-Paul Pellaprat, initially gave his 'vote' to the mixing method, the one mainly seen in English readings of the recipe, but changed his mind, adopting the 'fouetté' or whipped alternative instead, first in one of his many contributions to 'L'Art Culinaire Fran?ais', and again in his 'La Cuisine Familiale & Pratique'.
The objective of the fouetté is to obtain both a full 'cut' of the butter by the sugar and whip as much air in as is humanly possible at the same time. This to balance the somewhat raised moisture content from the orange blossom water compared with a madeleine 'au naturel'.
It's easy to see why the fouetté was never adopted as readily as the mixing method: this demands a very strong wrist, stamina, a top quality wire whisk, and a lot of attention to detail. The result, however, is incomparably better!
Madeleines de Commercy
------------------------------...
125g vanilla sugar
125g finest flour, double sifted
125g butter
4 eggs
a perfume of orange blossom water
butter & flour to prepare tins
Pre-heat your oven to 200?°C / 400°F
Butter and flour your madeleine tins
Method
---------
Place your butter in a bowl and soften (do *not* melt). With a wire whisk, work the butter until reduced to a pommade or gel-like consistency. Add the sugar and now proceed to whisk fiercely for *ten* minutes to obtain a perfect mousse cut.
Now add the first whole egg, and continue to whisk with vigour for 2-3 minutes, add the next egg, and repeat at 2-3 minute intervals until all eggs have been assimilated, never slackening the vigour of the whisking throughout, until complete.
Fold in the double sifted flour with a wooden spoon and blend with care. Blend in the perfume of orange blossom water with care, working the mixture as little as possible to achieve homogeneity. Do not now knock or bump your bowl of madeleine paste.
Fill a piping bag fitted with a broad plain nozzle with the madeleine paste and proceed to pipe into your madeleine tins -- the quantities given should yield 20-24 madeleines.
Bake for 15-20 mins or until golden and springy to the touch. Unmould, rack and cool.
Note: Don't rebalance this recipe nor add leavening agents: your wrist work, the cut, the eggs and the whipped-in air will give you a rise no chemical agent could ever get near achieving!
Edit:
Foghorn, behave, I'm blushing here... Re-reading Tony Bourdain's 'Confidential' last night, his definition of a patissier as the 'neurologist' of the kitchen raised a roar of laughter even on third reading. We be queer gear, I guess... :-)
Probably the oven temp was not hot enough. Try again.
With Madeleines, the Proust is in the eating!
Edit.
Cubcur is completely correct. (Chefs and Pattisseurs are different animals). A lot of Pattisseurs can also do 'cheffing', but rarely vice-versa. I can bake, but Patisserie is best left to the real experts, and I'd say, from previous answers from Cubcur, that he is a proven (pun not intended!) expert in this field.