How To Make Chocolate Madeleines

Want to take a basic recipe and make it into a special favorite? This is how to make Chocolate Madeleines from a basic recipe. Perfect for Valentine’s, these madeleines are easy to make into some chocolate goodness. You may have already seen those beautiful golden madeleines that have spurred the age-old question….Is it a cookie or a cake? These have the same texture but are laden with chocolate flavors.

But what are these little delights. The story goes that, in 1755, Louis XV, son-in-law of the duke, was charmed by the little cakes prepared by Madeleine Paulmier, thus the name. And the rest is history.

Madeleines are shell-shaped delicious cookies that have a nice crunchy exterior with an amazing cake texture….thus the quandary. You will need that special madeleine pan that is just for making these cookies. I went with a non-stick one. There are several types to choose from.

So in search of a Valentine’s treat, I found this super easy and great recipe by the Pioneer Woman for just a basic madeleine. So full credit goes to Rea Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, for the foundation of this recipe and how to make chocolate madeleines. Flavored with vanilla and almond extract, these delights seemed like the great baseline to have some fun with. Here’s what I did to change them up a bit.

Ingredients

Here’s the ingredients and the items that I added (bolded).

• Unsalted butter, plus extra for buttering the pan
• All purpose flour, plus extra for flouring the pan
• Dark cocoa powder and semi-sweet chocolate chips
• Kosher salt
• Baking powder
• Eggs
• Sugar
• Vanilla Bean Paste
• Almond Extract
• Semi-sweet mini chocolate chips

Putting them together

These cookies come together easily as compared to other madeleine recipes.

Take the butter and melt it in a pan, allowing it to bubble and foam. Let this cool.

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While the butter is cooling, take your dry ingredients and mix them together. Set them aside while you prepare the egg mixture.

In your electric mixer, beat the eggs and sugar until you achieve this thick and pale yellow mixture. This takes about 6 – 8 minutes. Its actually very beautiful as it transitions. Add your extracts. The combination of the vanilla and almond make a great pairing with chocolate.

Fold half of your dry ingredients into the egg mixture. Then the butter and remaining flour. Cover the bowl and place in your refrigerator to cool for 1 hour. The batter will thicken while its is chilling.

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Preheat your oven and get the pan ready.

Preparing the pan

These pans are great. They come in smaller sizes as well but I have always used the standard size. Using your pastry brush, coat the cavity liberally with butter and then dust with flour. You want the pan to be well coated so the cookies will come out. Otherwise they will get caught in the ridges of the pan.

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Place 1 tablespoon of batter in each of the cookie cavities – its a great firm batter. You don’t need to spread the batter – this happens in the oven. Place the cookies in the oven and bake for 12 minutes or until they spring back lightly to touch. And they do – its glorious.

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Take out of the oven and using a fork, gently lift the edges up and the cookie should come right out. Let them cool on a rack completely.

I decided to do stripes on the cookies instead of the traditional dipping. Not sure why I broke tradition, but they turned out delicious. I melted the chocolate chips in the microwave and then put the chocolate in a plastic bottle and striped the cookies. You could use a plastic bag or piping bag as well. And you could even just use your fork to do a splatter stripe on the cookie.

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Lessons Learned…..

If you have read some of my other posts, you know I like to try new recipes and change things but I also like to share my “lessons learned” with you. Learning every time I make something new or change something, I hope that these skips and bumps help you in some way.

Freezing….not so good! I like to freeze everything. Make ahead and freeze has been my motto but I found that with these, it changed the texture of the cookies. they became very dense. They didn’t deter me from eating them but they didn’t have that classic fluffy madeleine texture. So I would not recommend freezing them.

Chocolate Stripe instead of Dipping…..I wanted something a little different than the usual dip, though I have been told “dip the whole thing – I love chocolate”. I chose to do a little diagonal stripe across the top. Now if you have frozen these little gems, the chocolate doesn’t adhere well. Looks great but comes off in chunks, so I would as I said before, not freeze. Dip or decorate once cooled, and the chocolate will adhere.

Serving

In any case, even with the “lessons learned”, these little cookies were delicious and a treat to serve. Steep up a nice hot cup of Godiva Roche Rooibos tea or your favorite tea. It will go great with the chocolate and almond flavors in these cookies. Grab your sweetheart, make a batch of Chocolate Madeleines….and you have a sweet Valentine’s treat.