If you fancy giving them a go the recipe is below or you can get Rachel's new book on amazon...described as French recipes with a fun and fresh approach. It includes both sweet and savoury classics with a twist!
Ingredients
3 eggs
130g sugar
200g plain flour
10g baking powder
zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
20g honey
4 tbsp milk
200g butter, melted
Raspberries
Icing sugar
Lemon curd
1 unwaxed lemon, juice and zest
Pinch of salt
40g sugar
45g butter
2 egg yolks
You need to start the batter either the day before or a few hours before you want to bake these madeleines...I've never heard of this before but it seemed to work!
To start you need to melt the butter and leave it to cool. Whilst the butter is cooling beat the eggs and sugar together until light and frothy. Then in a seperate bowl sift the flour and baking powder together and then add the lemon zest. Mix the honey and milk with the cooled butter and add to the egg mixture. You can then fold in the flour to this mixture, it is best to do this in two batches. You can then leave this madeleine batter covered in the fridge overnight until you are ready to use it. Alternatively, if you wish to use it the same day it must be left for at least a few hours.
Next up is the lemon curd, which should also be left in the fridge overnight. Put the sugar, butter, salt and lemon zest and juice into a saucepan. Put it over a low heat until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved. At this stage take it off the heat. It is best to pre-prepare your egg yolks and beat them lightly, so that at this stage you can just add them straight to the saucepan. When you add the egg yolks you need to whisk vigorously, then return the saucepan to the low heat and whisk constantly to prevent curdling. Your lemon curd should start to thicken up and once you start to see a bubble or two, it's ready. Take it off the heat and pass it through a sieve into a bowl, place clingfilm over the top in direct contact with the curd and refridgerate overnight.
To bake, put the madeleines in the oven for 5 minutes, then turn the oven off altogether for 1 minute...this gives the madeleines their domed shpae. Finally, turn the oven back on to 160c/140c fan/gas 3 for a further 5 minutes. When done transfer to a wire rack to cool...or serve them warm from the oven.
The finishing touch is to insert the piping nozzle with the lemon curd into the mound of each madeleine and pipe about a teaspoons worth of lemon curd into the centre whilst they are still warm, this will also melt the lemon curd a bit! Et voila...a delicious teatime treat! :-)