Riding on a food writing wave

Since we've been having such a real winter in Virginia with weekly snowfall, I have been pretty much homebound. In anticipation of the last upcoming big snowstorm, I did a quick order of some food writing books from Amazon to keep myself occupied during these snowy days. Cooking and eating seems to be the best way to endure this long, cold winter, but I suppose reading about cooking and eating carries less of a calorie load ;) A few weeks ago I stumbled upon Heidi Swanson's award-winning food blog while looking for a new chewy, chunky, chocolate chip cookie recipe. I immediately took to the recipes she suggests from her extensive cookbook collection and from her own recipes. I just love her passion for sharing food! So ever since finding 101 cookbooks, I've been riding on this wave of food writing. So the books I ordered arrived just in time before the house was barricaded behind a couple feet of snow. For one long weekend I cozied-up on my sofa and read away, being inspired by culinary tales and the various shared recipes I wanted to attempt. I suppose I had my Julie/Julia moments, but not of the quarter-life crisis kind hehe

After I finished reading the first book in my mini-stack, The Sweet Life In Paris by David Lebovitz, I was set to try a Madeleine recipe. The sweet, delectable scallop designed French cakes became a baking mission. But I was first in need of a Madeleine mold baking tray. I first searched some local stores, from the Bed, Bath, & Beyond and the baking section of Michael's, but I suppose these trays are too much of a novelty to find in any big box stores. So I next moved onto Charlottesville's specialty cooking store, The Happy Cook. Just my luck, but they were sold-out of the metal trays and only had the mini Madeleine silicon molds in stock. I've never baked using a silicon mold so I didn't want to go there just yet. My mission to bake Madeleines was postponed for a few more days as I had to order the mold online. Funny, but in those days I was waiting for the mold to arrive, I took notice of these cakes more at various food stores, and I was in total shock of their price. A few more searches online revealed that they are not the cheapest little sweets, sometimes along the same price lines as gourmet chocolates. I just didn't get it... Probably because they are marketed as these handcrafted French treats.

Next, the task at hand was to find which recipe to use. Of course the initial inspiration for an attempt at Madeleines came from Lebovitz's book, but the true scientist in me calls for looking at different recipe protocols and then deciphering which one makes the most sense to me. I had his recipe, one from Ina Garten, a basic recipe from the mold package (it arrived!), and of course one tested and tried by Heidi Swanson from 101 Cookbooks. All the recipes had slight variations in the ratio of eggs, flour, butter, and sugar, and even little details in whether to use granulated versus powdered sugar. In my experiences with baking, it is more an exact science than say making a stew where you can add a little bit of this and that while cooking until it is just right. With baking, once you mix certain proportions, you are committed and the chemical process has begun! One technique that caught my eye was in the 101 Cookbooks Madeleine recipe, which called for brown butter, and after reading-up a bit more on Beurre noisette, I thought what the hey, let's brown some butter!

Madeleine molds with strained brown butter

I followed the recipe as closely as possible (Heidi is very good at giving you the nitty gritty details for the method, which really helps!). The recipe makes two dozen large cakes, but unfortunately I only had one tray so I baked the batter in two batches. I found by accident that if you let the batter rest for a bit after combining the last ingredients that the cakes are bit more dense and spongy because the second batch were definitely thicker. For some reason the first batch was thinner and didn't plump as much. Looking back on reviews for the 101 recipe, other testers also recommend letting the batter rest before baking.

Golden-browned Madeleines

My husband and I taste-tested quite a few from the first and second batches and they are definitely a winner! I don't know if it is the brown butter, but they are so moist and delicious. I look forward to making variations of this recipe, with chocolate, coconut, nuts....endless possibilities for Madeleines. Now I'm just waiting for the second mold I ordered online, with two trays I want to be able to make this recipe in one go.