Madeleines
Prep Time 2 hours 15 minutes 
Cook Time 10 minutes 
Total Time 2 hours 25 minutes 
Servings 12 madeleinesIngredients
- 2 egg
- 100 gr sugar
- 20 gr honey
- 100 gr unsalted butter
- 100 gr plain flour
- 3 gr baking powder
- 1 squeeze lemon juice
- 1 pinch salt
Equipment
Instructions
1. Prepare the egg mixture
- Crack the eggs into a bowl and add the sugar. Whisk until pale, thick, and a bit frothy, this gets those lovely air bubbles going.
2. Incorporate honey
- Add the honey to your egg and sugar mixture and mix it in well. You want the sweetness smooth and evenly distributed.
3. Melt and flavour the butter
- In a separate bowl, melt the butter. Mix in a squeeze of lemon juice and a pinch of salt, think of this as setting the stage for all that almondy, buttery aroma later.
4. Combine dry ingredients
- Sift the flour and baking powder together and add to the egg, sugar, and honey mixture. Stir gently until just incorporated.
5. Add the butter
- Pour your melted, lemony butter into the batter and fold through with care. Don’t overwork it, gentle hands make fluffy cakes.
6. Rest the batter
- Cover the bowl and let the batter rest in the fridge for at least 2 hours. This helps make that classic “hump”, the sign of a good madeleine!
7. Preheat and prepare your tray
- When you’re ready to bake, grease your madeleine tray with a bit of melted butter. Preheat the oven to 220°C.
8. Fill and bake
- Spoon the batter into your tray, filling each shell about three-quarters full (the mixture will rise). Bake for 3 minutes at 220°C, then reduce the oven to 200°C and bake for another 7 minutes until golden and slightly domed in the middle.
9. Cool and enjoy
- Pop them out of the Madeleines tray and, if you can resist, let them cool on a rack. The aroma alone makes it tough to wait, but the flavours come out better if you have some patience.
Notes
- You can make a million different versions of madeleines and never be bored. While the classic recipe is charmingly plain, just buttery, light, and elegant, don’t let that stop you from experimenting.
- Matcha: Fancy something a bit green and mysterious? Add a teaspoon of matcha powder for a gentle earthy twist and a colour that stops people in their tracks.
- Chocolate: Feeling whimsical? Dip half the shell in melted chocolate and let it set for that café-pâtisserie vibe.
- Lavender: For the flower-lovers, a hint of dried lavender in the batter brings a subtle Provençal aroma that transports you straight to sleepy village afternoons.
- Poppy seeds: Tiny poppy seeds add a gentle crunch that pairs beautifully with citrus zest.
- And experiment with decorations! Edible flowers, sprinkles, a quick drizzle of citrus glaze, go wild. The shell shape means every version looks stunning, and frankly, you’re only limited by your imagination (and whatever you find at the back of the cupboard).
About this recipe
When I met my English husband, I wanted to introduce him to French treats and I obviously started with the most elegant one: madeleines. These little cakes are so delicate, they look original, and they’re the perfect thing with your coffee. Or tea, to meet the UK halfway. I knew about madeleines of course, but never dared look up how to make them as they seemed so intricate. I was surprised to see how easy it actually was. Since then we make them regularly with our beloved madeleine tray that has been seriously overused but still looks like new. If you like simple, light butter cakes with a faint hint of lemon, you should definitely try these.
And obviously, a freshly baked French madeleine warm from the tray is a completely different thing from the ones wrapped in plastic at the supermarket. Not even comparable.
Where Madeleines come from
The madeleine cake was born in Commercy, a small town in the Lorraine region of northeastern France. The story that persists the most is the one of a young servant girl called Madeleine Paulmier, who in 1755 stepped in to save a dinner at the château of Stanislas Leszczyński (former King of Poland), after his pastry chef walked out mid-service. She made a small cake recipe she had learned from her grandmother, shaped in actual scallop shells because there were no proper moulds.
The guests loved them so much that Stanislas sent some to his daughter, who was married to Louis XV. When the queen was asked what to call them, she decided to name them after the girl who made them rather than after herself. And that’s how the madeleine pastry got its name. Which is quite a journey if you think about it, for such a small butter cake from a small town in Lorraine!
Commercy still takes their madeleines very seriously. The town has been producing and selling them commercially since the 19th century. For a long time, if you passed through Commercy by train, women with big wicker baskets would crowd the platform selling boxes of madeleines through the carriage windows. That image tells you everything about how much this little cake meant to the region.
Marcel Proust and the French Madeleine
No cake has ever generated as much literary commentary as the one eaten by the narrator of Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time. The narrator dips a small Madeleine cake into tea and is immediately overwhelmed by a rush of childhood memories. The taste unlocks a whole lost world of feeling and sensory experiences. It’s one of the most famous passages in French literature, if you’re French you learn about it at school. It is the connection between madeleines and memory.
That’s also why the expression “madeleine de Proust” entered the French language as shorthand for any small sensory experience, a taste, a smell, a sound, that suddenly brings back a wave of nostalgia. Every French person knows what it means.
The technique behind a proper french madeleine
To be honest, there isn’t really a technique per se, it’s more making sure you take your time to do the steps right. The madeleine pastry is a light, butter-rich batter, with the characteristic dome that forms during baking. That dome (or as we call it at home, the belly) is actually proof that the batter was properly rested and the tin was properly hot when the batter went in.
The rest in the fridge is non-negotiable, and that’s the bit people tend to skip because it feels unnecessary. The batter needs at least an hour in the cold. Chilling firms the butter and creates a temperature contrast when the cold batter hits the hot tin, and that’s exactly what causes the dome to form. You just need a little patience, that’s all.
Are these lemon madeleines?
Yes, and that’s actually the most traditional version rather than a variation, which surprises a lot of people. The classic french madeleine has always used lemon as one of its primary flavours, so it’s only natural that this is what you find in the original Commercy recipe too. The lemon lifts the butter and the sugar without taking over and gives each madeleine cake a brightness that a plain butter version just doesn’t have. Use fresh lemon rather than store bought and add it directly into the batter, that’s where the flavour really comes through.
How to bake Madeleines
Madeleines need their specific shell-shaped tin, and without it the batter just becomes small cakes, which are fine but they’re not Madeleines. The shell shape is also what gives it that even bake with a golden outside and a softer inside. So it’s worth getting a madeleine tray if you plan on making these more than once. And promise me, you will.
I have tried it with scallop shells, but somehow mine always stick to the shells. It doesn’t release as well and kind of ruins the shape, so I stick to non-stick. Pun intended.
How to eat Madeleines
Madeleines are best eaten within an hour of baking, when the crust is still slightly crisp and the inside is still warm and soft. That contrast of textures is really what makes them special, and it’s exactly why the supermarket ones could never be the same. By the time they’re packaged and sitting on a shelf, that contrast is long gone. They keep for a few days in an airtight tin but the crust softens and they lose some of that magic. So make them the same day you plan to serve them, make more than you think you’ll need, and eat them with a good coffee or tea.
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These madeleines turned out beautifully light with a delicate crisp edge! Reminded me of the little cakes I had in Paris years ago. Will definitely bake again for afternoon tea!