two weeks ago, the kid and i stood at the kitchen counter — she, perched, with toes curled around the very edge of a dining chair — sifting maccha powder into flour. we melted butter, we cracked eggs. we were finally giving the maccha madeleines a go (ref: the post, “the ethnic paris cookbook“).
it started off great. a newly acquired madeleine pan, a pale green batter that had to sit overnight in the fridge. “and now, can we make the shell cakes?” asked the kid, periodically.
and finally, the next day, it was time. i tried to fill the madeleine tray to two-third’s [is this apostrophe correct?] capacity as specified in the recipe, but there was so much of it that it came up to the brim. i whacked them in the oven for as long as the recipe said, and waited for it to be a bit puffed up, before turning down the temperature for a little more baking. and even given the unevenness and hotness of my oven, and the little blurb on the back of the madeleine tray packaging that extolled the superconducting properties of silicone, i wasn’t quite expecting this:
they were puffed up way more than you might think possible, and yet, not quite enough, for each one had broken out the top of itself. the single one that hadn’t blown its top seemed to have sprung a leak out of its side. a leaky tumour. when i removed them after the recommended baking time, it became clear that even though the outsides of the madeleines had browned quite nicely, and they had risen to majestic (ok, monstrous) heights in the oven, they still had quite runny insides. that tumour? it was still molten.
i gingerly removed one from the tray and bit into it, and it was not horrible. in fact, the parts that had cooked through had a nice spongy texture, slightly chewy, and a mild maccha-and-honey taste. i left the others to cool while i decided what to do. and when i returned, my alien pod cakes had turned into alien vagina cakes of doom.
i wonder if madeleines are the new macaron (the new cupcake?). deborah had a very successful run with her honey madeleines, and kathy turned out quite the golden bounty.
clearly some temperature tweaking is ahead of me. [grumble]
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wow, those are sort of um, explicit lookin’. could it be that silicone pans take a lower baking temperature? it has been a few years since i’ve used one, but i kinda remember something about that….
hmmm, explicit indeed.
tell me, was the silicone tray perched on another baking tray? i had mine on a steel baking sheet which may have conducted the heat differently.
yeah, “ugly as sin”, i think, may be the expression you are after. santos, indeed, the silicone tray packaging did mention something like that in passing. i shall lower the temp next time. deb, i had them on a dark-coated biscuit tray, which may have absorbed extra heat, so i think a lot of lowering of temp is required next time.
the important thing of course, is that there will be a next time. good thing this is an “easy”cake, unlike those strange macaron i ended up with last year. maybe i’m not cut out to make fancy french cakes. maybe i should just become friends with adriano zumbo. 🙂
These cakes are the biz! Did you eat them?
The fun you could have decorating it. hehehe.
actually, i did eat a few. they were really yummy! and then i started to think about the health issues eating the uncooked eggy bits, and so now i think there are a bunch of them hiding out in the fridge, biding their time. maybe i should go ahead and decorate them and leave them in strategic places along the street, to scare the locals.
OMG your cakes look very ‘ham-sap’ (lewd in Cantonese).
I am thinking of getting the book, only I cannot be bothered to drag myself to an English bookstore. Will probably skip this cake even if I go ahead and buy it.
The best madeleines are apparently those with “nipples” on them. But I can’t believe how lewd yours turned out. They’re quite cute actually.
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[…] i have a new madeleine tray, and wanted to see if i could avoid the alien pods of doom — you may remember — from last year. i feel heartened enough from this batch to give those darned maccha […]