Madeleines are classic little French cakes. You can have them for breakfast, with tea or as a little “gouter” which is our 4pm cake snack for children in France when they come back from school. They should be light with a strong buttery taste.
I tried a recipe from my BBC good food magazine from Michel Roux Jr, but there were lemon Madeleines. Even though the recipe was a good base to start experimenting, classic madeleines should not be that lemony. So here is my version and I hope you will enjoy it. I used my work colleagues and my trapeze fellow learners as guinea pigs and they all loved it. Someone even asked if I had bought them!
One thing to keep in mind is that madeleines dry very quickly so always keep them in an airtight container. Or let them become stale and dip them in tea!

Ingredients to make 12 normal size madeleines

• 100g good quality slightly salted butter
• 2 medium eggs
• 100g caster sugar
• 100g plain flour
• 1tsp of baking powder
• 2 drops of almond extract
• Optional: remove 25g of flour and replace with the best hot chocolate powder you have. I used my hot chilli chocolate powder for this recipe.

Start by melting the butter slowly, once melted, make it bubble for an extra 5 minutes to cook it slightly which will give the distinctive madeleine taste. Set aside to cool down. Whisk the eggs and the sugar together until fluffy and pale in a bowl. Then mix in the flour, the almond extract and the baking powder and fold in the slightly cooled butter. Leave the mixture to rest for about 10 minutes. Brush some melted butter on the Madeleine moulds, if you don’t have any you can use little rectangle moulds. Spoon the mixture in the moulds up to nearly the top and let it rest for 15 minutes. Switch your oven on at 200C and when it’s hot bake the Madeleine for 11 minutes. They should look golden on the top and the edges should have a slightly darker colour. The top should be cooked and not sticky but still soft to the touch when pushed down. If you still had some more mixture in your bowl, cook them after your first batch is done..