Blood Orange and Strawberry Madeleines

Blood Orange and Strawberry Madeleines

BLOOD ORANGE AND STRAWBERRY MADELEINES

 

If you have been following me for a while, you know I love to pair fruits with fruits, herbs or spices, and I have been doing it since 2014 – ever since I started Jam Lab. I have come up with various flavor combinations way before it became “trendy”/common to do so! I have seen many bloggers “inspired” by my flavor combinations.

 

Blood oranges are still in season at our local farmer’s market, and while they are still around for the next couple of weeks, I decided to make madeleines – Blood Orange and Strawberry Madeleines that I have been dreaming about since a while. I have a little book where I write down all my flavor combinations, and I get to them when I do, and recipe test and then put it out on the blog.

 

Blood oranges are truly the prettiest fruit, with the prettiest hues. I made these Blood Orange, Raspberry and Black Tahini Tarts last year. The combination just works beautifully! Blood orange is citrusy and berries are so fruity/tart/sweet – the combination gels together so well. That is how I came up with Blood Oranges and Strawberries.

blood orange and strawberry madeleines

What are Madeleines?

Madeleines originated from France, and are little spongy cakes, or teatime cake cookies? It is a bit confusing. They have the same ingredients as a pound cake – eggs, butter, sugar, flour, but are baked in these shell shaped pans, have a signature hump on them, and the bottom has the pretty shell pattern from the pan. 

 

You can find more history about madeleines here. French folks usually have them for breakfast with coffee or with tea time in the afternoon. They are light, airy, spongy, petit and delicious!

 

They are really easy to put together. I would often make madeleines (the days I would work from home). They would be ready within 1.5 hours and I would have a little snack ready for my kids when they would come back from school. 

The flavor that I would make is usually a Black Sesame and Lemon Madeleine – you can find the recipe here, when I used to post recipes to Facebook, prior to when I had a food blog!

 

Ingredients of a Madeleine:

  • All purpose Flour : For a light and airy sponge cake, you require all-purpose flour. I use Bob’s Red Mill as my brand of choice.
  • Baking powder: To make it light and airy, a little baking powder is required.
  • Eggs : Room temperature eggs are a must. The eggs make the batter light too.
  • Granulated Sugar: Granulated Sugar whipped with the eggs, to get a ribbon like texture is the important step. The sugar helps with the crispy edges, right when they are fresh out of the oven.
  • Blood Orange Zest and Juice: These madeleines have blood orange zest and juice which gives it that bright flavor profile.

blood orange and strawberry madeleines

Pan to use for making madeleines:

There are a lot of options on Amazon. The one that I have used for this recipe is currently unavailable on Amazon. But you can use a standard Madeleine pan that makes 12 cakes.

blood orange and strawberry madeleines

Method to make the Madeleines:

The first most important step to making good madeleines is to whip the granulated sugar, along with the eggs really well to get a ribbon like texture. The whipped eggs make the batter light, and hence the madeleines are airy too.

 

Next add the blood orange zest, juice, vanilla extract and whisking the batter. Then we add the dry ingredients and mix it gently as you do not want to remove the airiness from the batter. Final step is to fold in the melted and cooled butter.

 

The batter needs to be chilled for atleast half an hour to an hour. I made these madeleines a few times, without putting the batter in a piping bag, and using a small scoop, and putting the batter in a piping bag. The results are muchhhh better with the piping bag, resulting in even madeleines that have an equal hump on all of them.

 

The oven has to be at 425 degrees. This helps to give the madeleines the signature hump. Reduce the temperature to 400 degrees after 3-4 minutes, and bake for another 10 minutes or so, until the bottom of the madeleines are a beautiful brown color. Do not overbake, else you will dry them out.

 

I dip them in Valrhona Strawberry Inspiration Feves that I get from Amazon. They have a beautiful potent strawberry flavor, and the blood orange and strawberry flavor is just SO perfect!! I jazz them up with sprinkles. 

blood orange and strawberry madeleines

Storing Madeleines:

Madeleines are best stored in an airtight container, for upto 2 to 3 days at the most. They are best eaten on the day off. 

 

They are SO good when dipped in coffee. The sweet madeleine with the bitter coffee is a killer combination!

 

I hope you get a chance to make these lovely madeleines, and you enjoy them as much as I have enjoyed sharing it with you.

 

If you do make these, please do not forget to tag #thejamlab on Instagram and/or leave a comment on this blog post.

 

Hope you all are enjoying Spring wherever you are!

 

XO

Amisha

 

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