Rachel Khoo's Madeleines with Lemon Curd

Has anyone been watching Rachel Khoo's Little Paris Kitchen...it makes me want to give up my job, move to Paris and immediately start baking in a tiny kitchen!! For those of you who haven't seen it, it's currently on BBC 2 on Mondays at 8.30pm. Rachel has been whipping up some fabulous recipes and this is one I just had to try!

I've had a madeleine pan for a while but I've never used it, so this was the perfect opportunity. And I have to say what's not to like about these madeleines...a soft moist sponge with a touch of honey and a baked raspberry centre, oozing with homemade lemon curd...serve them warm...heaven! 

I would highly recommend these madeleines they were truly delicious...I say that about a lot of things but I gave these to a friend who receives quite a few of my culinary creations and she said that these were quite possibly her favourite! The only thing I forgot to do was take a picture of the scalloped side of the madeleines...oh well...I guess I'll just have to make them again!

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.

This recipe makes about 24 madeleines so if you have a 12 hole pan, you will need to make them in two batches. To bake, preheat the oven to 190c/170c fan/gas 5 and butter and flour the madeleine pan. Also put the lemon curd into a piping bag with a small nozzle. The recipe call for a heaped tablespoon to be placed in each madeleine shell...I found this to be too much, just below the top of the shell worked for me. You can then push a raspberry into the centre of each madeleine.

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! :-)