madeleines

it's been months since i last baked. and i enjoyed baking before i ever had any sort of grasp on cooking. so what is up with that? maybe because i just don't eat bread that often (unless it's rye, of course!) and when i have a sweets craving, i just reach for a bar of quality chocolate. but today everything seemed to fall together. well, the ingredients at least.


we had two out of the trio of organic lemons that i bought for the victoria bars a couple nights ago. exactly three eggs left after the dane and i each had a soft-boiled egg for breakfast. and the most important part; a madeleine kit thoughtfully given to me by my aunt. she makes these little cakes occasionally and i can't resist them. apparently she also knows that i like to bake. while i was visiting california in december my relatives gave me some money and small gifts since it was so close to christmas. the best one contained a madeleine pan, lemon zester, pastry brush, and a recipe:

madeleines
(makes 24)

1/2 cup salted butter at room temperature
3 eggs at room temperature
1/4 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups flour

preheat the oven to 400°F. very generously grease the molds with butter. in a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar together with a fork and then add lemon zest and salt. gently fold in the flour, then fold in melted butter and vanilla. bake for 9 minutes.

obviously i used lurpak butter but there were some changes that i made. vanilla extract seems quite hard to come by in denmark. i just replaced five tablespoons of the cup of sugar with vanillesukker (vanilla sugar), which is nice because now the little cakes have flecks of vanilla bean in them. i also added in the salt with the sugars before beating, but maybe that was a bad idea? in any case, the madeleines were soft inside and some were slightly crisped at the edges. maybe i should have rotated the pan halfway through baking. but they were unanimously delicious! well, at least the three i ate. (;


i still don't think these are as delicate and tasty as the ones my aunt makes, but they are pretty good and i finally got to put her gifts to use. and all this came from leftover organic lemons! they always come in threes... anyone got zest recipes? or better yet, does anyone know where i can buy økologisk citroner individually? :/