Madeleines are my favorite little cakes, and my favorite time to eat them is in the midafternoon with a cup of tea. So why not combine cake and tea and make earl grey madeleines.
For me, there is nothing better than it finally reaching 3 pm, and I can stop and have a cup of tea with a little cake. I have most likely have already accomplished quite a lot for the day, and am now able to take a moment, rest, take a sip of something delicious, and bolster myself so that I can effectively finish the day.
I wanted to put that moment into a delightful little cake. Madeline's are the ideal tea cake because of their bite-sized nature, sweet and buttery taste, and fluffy texture. Earl grey tea is also, in my opinion, the best tea for the afternoon because it has this light floral taste that softly lulls you back to life. Not the bolt of intense flavor and caffeine that you need early in the morning.
Madeleines
Madeline's are light little cakes that traditionally are made from whipping eggs into a frenzy, but the brilliant Yotam Ottolenghi and Helen Goh have developed a method in their cookbook Sweet, which has you put the mixture in a food processor and whip it that way. The cakes aren't quite as fluffy with this technique, but they last longer and are still so delightful.
The good honey
You will want to use your best honey for these cakes. There are a couple of tablespoons in the actual cake, and then you use warm honey as a glaze to finish them, so having high quality and flavorful honey is important.
Other tea time cakes:
Orange Madeleines with Bourbon Glaze
Bourbon Banana Cake with Bourbon Caramel Frosting.
Print
Earl Grey Madeleines
- Prep Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 10 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Yield: about 2 dozen 1x
Ingredients
- 6 tbsp unsalted butter
- 1 tsp honey plus 5 tablespoon for the glaze
- 2 large eggs
- ⅓ cup + 1 tsp granulated sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- Zest from 1 small orange
- 1 tbsp finely chopped loose leaf earl grey tea
- ½ cup +1 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ⅛ tsp salt
Instructions
- Melt the butter, honey, and tea in a saucepan and set aside and allow it to come to room temperature.
- Put the eggs, sugar, vanilla, and orange zest into a food processor and pulse until smooth. Pour in the flour, baking powder, and salt and pulse until combined. Next, add in the melted butter mixture and pulse until combined.
- Pour the mixture into a bowl and cover with plastic wrap and let it rest in the fridge for 1 hour.
- Once rested take the mixture out of the fridge and pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees.
- Grease a madeleine pan with butter and then cover with flour, shake off the excess. Using a spoon fill each of molds ⅔ of the way with batter.
- Bake for 9-10 munites and until the edges of the madeleines have browned.
- Let the madeleines cool for a few minutes and then use a knife to gently remove them from their molds.
- Once removed for their tins, glaze them with warm honey and sprinkle with powder sugar.
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