White Chocolate and Lemon Madeleines Recipe
White chocolate is one of those flavors that is wonderful in its ability to pair beautifully with a huge panoply of other delightful things - famously strawberries, but also raspberries, orange, or nuts. A flavor which I think can go particularly well with white chocolate however, superbly complementing the rich sweetness of white chocolate by adding on a piercing note of acidity and freshness, is lemon. These are particularly decadent with the vast amounts of melted butter that madeleines tend to use plus the white chocolate that is brought into it, sugary, just shying away from the point of becoming overwhelming, and soft and almost spongy when they're eaten. And the best part? Madeleines are so easy to make, and even if you make errors along the way they're still certain to come out delicious!
These were particularly interesting due to getting very different textures for the different madeleines stemming from two different pans, with one madeleine pan being black and the other silver: the black pan ones came out easily from their pans and were well formed and pretty madeleines, while the silver pan ones had a very different appearance and were a dreadful pain to attempt to extract. The black ones were positioned below in the oven, and the silver pan ones above, and I believed that the silver ones weren't as ready and took them out after several additional minutes of cooking, and yet to no avail concerning them sticking together. I would recommend using a black madeleine pan for these as a result, as it seems to work better, but really just make sure to carefully observe to see what is going on with the cookies while they're baking. With both, the texture was very pleasant, soft and spongy, excellent French butter cookies, regardless of what problems there were with the cooking process.
This recipe is entirely my own.
Ingredients
- 3 eggs
- 1 stick (8 tablespoons) butter
- 2 teaspoons lemon extract
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup white chocolate chips
- 1 1/2 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Melt the butter in a saucepan over the stove on medium heat until it turns a rich and dark color with a nutty flavor about it. Add in the white chocolate chips and stir to combine as they melt into the melted butter.
- In a medium sized bowl, combine together the sugar, lemon extract, salt, and eggs, and beat until it is thick and smooth, for several minutes. Add in the flour and beat again to combine it.
- Fold in the browned butter until it is well incorporated,
- Grease two non-stick madeleine pans with butter or anti-stick spray, then using a spoon ladle in the madeleine batter, to produce around 24 cookies. When filling, don't have the filing go all the way to the top - it should rise somewhat, so allow it to be lower than the lip.
- Place the madeleine pans into a preheated oven at 375 degrees Fahrenheit for 12 minutes. Check to make sure they do not overcook.
- Remove from the oven, allow to cool, take the cookies out of their pans, and dust with powdered sugar just before serving.
© 2020 Ryan Thomas
