Welcome to the world of humps, moulds, glazes and fillings.
We’re talking madeleines. For the uninitiated, madeleines are petit, moulded cakes commonly found in French boulangeries. The ingredients list is full of basic staples – flour, butter, eggs, sugar – but this is no two-step packet cake. As with a lot of French patisserie, the bake demands perfection and leaves little room for error.
As the name suggests, Madeleines by Hyoju Park (ex-Attica) and Rong Yao Soh is about one thing and one thing only. The authors are the owners of Melbourne bakery Madeleine De Proust Patisserie. The bakery’s name is inspired by an early passage in Swann’s Way, the first book in Marcel Proust’s enormous novel In Search of Lost Time. Proust describes a sensory trigger (in his case a madeleine) that brings on intense, nostalgic memories of childhood. For me, it’s the smell of flowering wisteria that takes me back to the carport at my childhood home; for Anton Ego (of Disney’s Ratatouille), it’s the tomato, eggplant and zucchini ratatouille dish. Once you discover yours, it’s a true delight each time you encounter it.
Park and Yao Soh’s expertise and own poignant memories are at the heart of their debut cookbook. This book is not for someone who craves easy wins from their baking. This book is for obsessive, curious and adventurous project bakers. You’ll need to graduate from the first section of the book before you even think of preheating the oven. Park and Yao Soh detail everything you need to know about prepping the tin, filling the mould, tempering chocolate and everything in between. It’s essential pre-reading before you proceed to the bakes.
I felt this pressure looming when selecting a recipe for this column. I selected what I considered a relatively easy recipe: the yuzu madeleines. (Jump to recipe below.) Each recipe in the book requires everything to be measured out beforehand. The eggs need to be blended and sieved to remove the protein, a pot of water needs to be bubbling for a double boiler and an air of confidence needs to be generated, because I reckon the madeleines can smell your fear.
I painstakingly follow the instructions. I heat this and that to the required temperatures, mix as instructed, and prep the moulds as outlined in the beginning of the book. (It involves either oil or butter and flour depending on what sort of tray you’re working with.) As the yuzu sugar syrup cools, the batter is spooned (due to my lack of a piping bag) into the moulds without too much splatter, and after 12 minutes in the oven, I can finally exhale. It worked. Dare I say, it worked pretty well. The syrup gets slicked on while the golden cakes are still hot, followed by the glaze and zest once cooled. Smug and impressed, I trot down the street to share a plate of my pretty perfect yuzu madeleines with friends.
Yuzu madeleines by Hyoju Park and Rong Yao Soh
Makes 12 servings
Preparation time: 20 minutes
Cooking time: 13 minutes
Ingredients
Yuzu syrup
25g caster sugar
25g yuzu juice
Lemon madeleine batter
125g cake flour
5g (1 tsp) baking powder
Pinch of sea salt
105g unsalted butter
7g milk
85g whole eggs, strained
80g caster sugar
10g honey
4g grated lemon zest
Yuzu glaze
80g icing sugar
20g yuzu juice
Finish
Grated yuzu or lemon zest
Method
For the yuzu syrup, combine the sugar and yuzu juice in a small pan. Bring to the boil, then remove from heat and leave to cool.
For the lemon madeleine batter, Preheat the oven to 210°C fan and prepare your mould (22mm deep).
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In a heatproof bowl, melt the butter and milk over a pan of simmering water, keeping the temperature at 40°C.
Take a new heatproof bowl and warm the eggs, sugar, honey and lemon zest to 30°C over the same pan of simmering water.
Mix the dry ingredients gently into the egg mixture, then mix in the butter one-third at a time.
Pipe into the moulds, reduce the oven temperature to 180°C and bake for 10–13 minutes until risen and set.
Once baked, brush each madeleine with yuzu syrup, while still warm.
For the yuzu glaze, sift the icing sugar and mix with yuzu juice until completely smooth.
To finish, once the madeleines are completely cooled, brush a thin layer of yuzu glaze over each one. Zest some fresh yuzu or lemon over the top.
Let them air-dry at room temperature, or place in the oven at 130°C fan for 1 minute to speed up the drying process.
This is an edited extract from Madeleines by Hyoju Park and Rong Yao Soh, published by Quadrille. Available in stores nationally. Photography by Michael Gardenia.
Gemma Plunkett is a Sydney-based dinner party tragic and home cook who is a writer, content strategist and recipe developer. Find her (but mostly food) in pictures or in your inbox via her free newsletter Ding!
Dining and Cooking