Marbled Mocha Madeleines

I love a bit of alliteration and these marbled mocha madeleines pretty much named themselves! I wanted a quick bake this weekend, partly so I could test out some new photography equipment I’ve just bought and also because we’re doing so much stuff around the house, I feel like I have so little spare time.

I knew I didn’t want the 3-day weekend to pass by without a spot of baking, but given that I baked these last night at 7pm, it feels a bit cheeky referring to them as a bank holiday bake, but I’m still going to.

With regards to the photography equipment I’ve bought, don’t worry, this isn’t suddenly going to turn into a blog where I offer up all of my photography tips – that would be a bit hypocritical as I really have no idea what I’m doing! I’m just trying to improve my picture taking as best I can.

These madeleines were inspired by two of my favourite things, chocolate covered coffee beans and caffè mocha. I love the combination of chocolate and coffee and I wanted to use them to create a marbled cake. So I decided to make marbled madeleines.

This wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, the cakes were so small it was actually quite hard to see the marbling. When you’ve only got a teaspoon of batter to play with, it is asking a lot! Nonetheless I persevered and you can see a slight colour contrast in these delicious little cakes.

I feel a bit sorry for the Madeleine because they taste their best straight out of the oven. They’re a bit doughnut-like and they’re much lighter when just cooked. I don’t really do ‘bake while you wait’, normally the things I make are shared for an occasion or shared the following day.

So I always feel a bit guilty when I share Madeleines with people a day later and they’ve lost their edge. I worry that they’ll be considered a drab bit of sponge and not the delicate scallop shaped little cake that they are.

I’ve tried coating the madeleines in a glaze, like these lemon and freeze-dried raspberry madelienes, but they still dried out. So I think madeleines are just going to be one of those treats that you make the night before and cook in the morning for breakfast, much like you would with croissants that you’ve bought from the supermarket.

This madeleine recipe has been adapted from the honey & vanilla Madeleines I featured on my blog a while ago.

To make these Madeleines I used Carte Noire instant coffee and Green and Black’s cocoa powder, they give these a really rich deep flavour and I would recommend both of these if you’re going to give these a go.

Marbled Mocha Madeleines

Patisserie Makes Perfect

Madeleines are a delicious miniature cake, prepared in a madeleine pan to give the traditional scalloped edge and golden brown crumb. This recipe requires you to make a beurre noisette, if you don't feel confident doing this, you can just melt the butter. The beurre noisette does help give the madeleines their classical caramel colour and nutty taste. The batter also needs to be left in the fridge overnight, which helps them keep their shape when baking. The addition of chocolate and coffee gives these madeleines a delicious mocha taste, making them the perfect accompaniment to your morning coffee.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 8 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 8 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Course Baking

Cuisine French

Servings 12

Ingredients

  

• 125 g Unsalted Butter
• 100 g Icing Sugar
• 40 g Ground Almonds
• 40 g Plain Flour
• Pinch of Salt
• 3 Egg Whites approx 90g
• 2 Tsp Honey
• 1 Tsp Vanilla Extract
• 2 Tsp Instant Coffee Granules
• 2 Tsp Cocoa Powder

Instructions

 

• Place the butter in a saucepan over a medium heat and let it melt. Get a bowl ready and stand it on a heatproof service (a trivet or towel), you will pour the butter into this bowl to stop it cooking further.
• Cook the butter until it turns golden. It will bubble up, so you need a spatula or spoon to scrape the bubbles back so you can see the colour. The butter will also start to smell nutty.
• As soon as the butter starts to colour pour it straight into the bowl to stop it cooking.
• Allow to cool completely.
• Sift the sugar, almonds, flour and salt into a bowl.
• Whisk in the egg whites, honey and vanilla extract until combined.
• Finally add the cooled beurre noisette and whisk until it is fully mixed in.
• Weigh the mixture and divide it evenly between two bowls. Cover one bowl with cling-film and place it in the fridge.
• Add the coffee granules and the cocoa powder to the other bowl of mix and whisk it until it is evenly combined. Cover this bowl with clingfilm and place in the fridge too.
• The mixture should stay in the fridge overnight or for at least 8-10 hours. This helps the mixture thicken to the right consistency for baking.
• Just before baking pre-heat the oven to 170 degrees (325 degrees F), Gas 3.
• Take the madeleine pan and rub butter into the scalloped moulds, then dust the tray with flour.Tap off the excess flour.
• Take both batters and swirl them together lightly so that they are still very different colours. Fill each mould with a heaped teaspoon of batter.
• You may find you have batter left over, do not over fill the moulds, you can use this batter to make more madeleines after your first batch.
• Bake the madeleines in the pre-heated oven for 12-15mins, you may need to rotate the pan half-way through baking to ensure they cook evenly.
• Allow to cool slightly and then remove the madeleines from the pan, allow them to cool a little and then tuck in!

Do you like Madeleines? Or do you think they’re a lot of fuss about nothing?

Thanks for reading

Angela

I’m linking these Madeleines to Fabulous Foodie Fridays.