French pastries - Madeleines

French pastries Madeleines

We had the French pastries Madeleines on our river cruise on the Rhone got to know. This trip started in France's capital of pleasure, Lyon. We also moored in Avignon on the way. We visited the market halls in both cities. These are the best places to learn about the specialties that are available in each region and in France. So it's no wonder that we were able to eat Madeleine at the same time. Madeleines can be recognized immediately by their shape. The dough made of flour, powdered sugar, egg, baking soda, lemon peel, butter and rum is placed in a shell pan, in which it takes on the shape of a shell when it is baked.

 

 

Eat Madeleine
Eat Madeleine

Where do the French Madeleines pastries come from?

The French pastry Madeleines originally comes from Commercy. This is a small town in the Meuse department in the Grand Est region in north-eastern France. According to legend, it is said to have been invented by Madeleine Paulmier, a young cook in the household of the Marquise Perrotin de Barmont in the castle of Commercy. In 1755 the ex-King of Poland and Duke of Lorraine was a guest there. However, at a celebratory dinner that he held in Commercy Castle, he fell out with his cook so much that he quit without notice. In an emergency, Madeleine suggested a recipe from her grandmother to replace the missing dessert. Because there was no other solution to the embarrassing situation, she was allowed to serve her cakes to the guests. These tasted so good in aristocratic society that the Duke named the cakes after them. I cannot verify whether this story is true. It is always a beautiful legend.

Another source says, however, that the recipe for the French pastry Madeleine came from a cook of Cardinal de Retz, who lived in Commercy a hundred years earlier.

In any case, the town of Commercy claims the invention of the French pastry Madeleines for itself. Pastries made from sponge dough have even been protected by law since 1977.

While we were able to buy French madeleines in the markets, we now also have them at Christmas time. In order to bake the French madeleines so that they look like they do in France, you need a madeleine shape in which you get the shell shape of the pastry.

 

 

Madeleines de Commerce
French pastries Madeleines photo Bernard Leprêtre, CC BY-SA 2.5

Bake French pastries Madeleines yourself

Ingredients for 36 madeleines

  • 4 eggs
  • 100 g sugar
  • a pinch of salt
  • 100 g flour
  • 1 level teaspoon baking powder
  • grated peel of a lemon
  • 75 g melted butter

Preparation of the French Madeleines pastry

Mix the eggs, sugar, and salt and beat them until frothy.

Strain the flour and baking powder through a sieve and fold them with the lemon zest into the batter.

Then you add the lightly browned butter.

Pour a teaspoon of batter into each well of the madeleine tray. There should still be space in the depression because the dough will rise. For that he needs space.

Then bake the madeleines at 180 ° C in a preheated oven for 12 to 15 minutes. The Madeleine is about to start turning a tan. Then they are best.

 

Madeleine's recipe
Click on the photo and make a note of the “Madeleine's recipe” on Pinterest

Do you already know:

Quelle Madeleine essen: own research on site

Text French pastries Madeleines: © Copyright Monika Fuchs, TravelWorldOnline
Photos French pastries Madeleines © Copyright see caption and public domain

French pastries - Madeleines

Travel expert Monika Fuchs

Monika Fuchs and Petar Fuchs are the authors and publishers of the Food and Slow Travel blog  TravelWorldOnline. They have been publishing this blog since 2005. TravelWorldOnline has been online since 2001. Their topics are trips to Savor, wine tourism worldwide and slow travel. During her studies Monika Fuchs spent some time in North America, where she - partly together with Petar Fuchs - traveled to the USA and Canada and spent a research year in British Columbia. This intensified her thirst for knowledge, which she satisfied for 6 years as an adventure guide for Rotel Tours and then for 11 years as a tour guide for Studiosus Reisen around the world. She was constantly expanding her travel regions, but curiosity still gnawed at her: "What's beyond the horizon? What else is there to discover in this city? Which people are interesting here? What do they eat in this region?" As a freelance travel journalist (her articles have appeared in DIE ZEIT, 360° Canada, 360° USA, etc.), she is now looking for answers to these questions as a travel writer and travel blogger in many countries around the world. Petar Fuchs produces the videos on this blog as well as on YouTube. Monika Fuchs from TravelWorldOnline is among Germany's top 50 bloggers in 2021. Find more Information about Monika and Petar Fuchs here.