My sister Helen bought me a madeleine silicone baking mould for christmas and I still haven't got round to using it so this weekend I pulled it out of my wardrobe, cleaned off the dust and got baking. I've actually been wanting to make french madeleines for a while but because we have been without an electric whisk (my sister took it to uni blah!) I've been unable to do so. However, I got my mum's Kenwood mixer out and used this instead which worked perfectly fine. I tried adding jam to some of the madeleines but unfortunatly is sank to the bottom whereas I wanted it to ooze out the center when you bite into the cake. The mixture was too thin (as with my cupcakes that I made earlier in the year) so maybe the jam idea wasn't so great- I just cut them open to spread with jam afterwards-very yummy! The cakes were nice but I think they could have been a bit lighter in texture- I think maybe too much air was knocked out when I stirred in the flour. However, I do plan to make these again and I will keep practicing until they are perfect!
Along with the madeleines, I also made little treacle tarts, rather than making one big one. I slightly over filled the tarts as the mixture spilled over in some of them but this is a usual mistake that I make because I like lots of filling! I didn't think these tarts were over-sweet considering the filling is mainly golden syrup- infact, they weren't really sweet enough for me- typical!
Both of todays recipes were taken from Leith's Baking Bible.
