These madeleines, masquerading as Oysters from ‘The Walrus and the Carpenter’, were the star of my Alice in Wonderland Afternoon tea. Not only were they cake, which is a big win in any book, but the addition of the salt and pepper gave it a sweet and savoury flavour that only the best creations can do (salted caramel, sweet and salty popcorn, all delicious creations of mad geniuses).
100g
Plain Flour
100g
Caster Sugar
100g
Melted Butter
2
Egg Whites, 1 Egg Yolk
1 tbsp salted caramel (I used Bonne Maman)
2 tsp cracked mixed pepper (black, pink etc.)
A
drop of vanilla extract
Pinch
sea salt
Heat oven to 190C/170C fan/gas 5. Butter a 12-hole madeleine mould (use a tiny amount of the melted butter) and dust lightly with flour.
Mix the flour and sugar in a bowl. Put the butter, egg yolk, vanilla, a crack of pepper and salted caramel into a separate bowl and whisk with a fork to mix.
Whisk the two egg whites until stiff. If it starts to release liquid add a pinch of caster sugar to stabilize.
Fold the butter mixture into the dry ingredients until evenly mixed, then fold in the egg whites in two batches using a fork or wooden spoon. Be very careful at this stage that all the egg white is mixed in but that the air isn’t knocked out.
Divide between the prepared moulds.
Place a spoonful of salted caramel spread into the centre of each madeleine and cover with more batter.
Bake for 10-12 mins until golden brown and firm to the touch. Leave to cool in the moulds for a few mins, then turn out and cool on a wire rack.
Drizzle with more salted caramel before serving. Crack some pepper over and sprinkle with sea salt for a delicious sweet and savoury finish.
Growing up, when I first
started to cook, there was no hesitation to say that I was terrible. On my
first attempt to cook a meal for my parents my friend and I managed to not only
horribly burn the starter (to this day I still have no idea what it was
supposed to be) but also to mis-read the main recipe which stated the lamb had
to be marinated three days before. As I continued to cook I made plenty more
mistakes, mistakes that helped me to learn everything I needed to in the
kitchen, but the majority of mistakes I’ve made, and still continue to make are
in that terrifying area called ‘the pastry section’.
Now, the pastry section isn’t about making chicken pies,
as the name may suggest. I can’t even begin to understand why it’s actually
under this title (though I assume it’s something to do with the French
translation, or what the French choose/chose to eat for this course), but it
can be commonly called the place in the kitchen where you make the puddings.
For any of you that read this paragraph and have watched a lot of cooking
programs, like me, you probably already knew that and I apologise.
When I started training to be a chef I was rarely put on
puddings during an active service. Very early on, my first Christmas in the
training kitchen/restaurant in fact, I was put on main courses and so I had to
use my brief lessons during the week on puddings to teach me the little I now
know. Of those lessons and my hours practicing at home I can only say this: you
want to make a truly great pudding? Learn how to make custard.
Why, do you ask, am I so adamant about this? Because
custard is the foundation of so many great puddings. You want a Crème Brule?
Make a custard. You want Crème Patisserie in your tart? Make a thicker custard.
You want ice-cream, like my Pineapple and Cinnamon ice-cream on my ‘Hard Times’
pudding? All you have to do is learn to make a custard.
In truth, I no longer have a recipe for ice-cream (or, I
should say, I do but I no longer use it). I could try and come up with a recipe
for you to follow, but why do that when you can create new flavours for
yourself with some simple foundational knowledge? So here we go, this is how I
made the custard for my ice-cream:
Step 1: Put milk (whole
or semi-skimmed) in a pan with flavourings (e.g. vanilla, cinnamon etc.). Smell
the pan (or taste it, if that’s easier) to see whether you have enough. Bring
the milk to the boil and then remove from the heat.
Step 2: Separate egg
yolks from egg whites. It tends to be a 1 egg yolk to 100ml milk ratio,
depending on the size of your eggs.
Step 3: Beat egg yolks with plenty of sugar (depending on the size of your yolk it may be anything from 70g to 120g for 4 eggs) until mixture looks creamy and pale. If it doesn’t look right, beat in more sugar or add more egg yolk.
Step 4: Slowly add warm
milk and beat in with whisk (this won’t take long). You can tell when you’ve
added enough milk when the consistency reaches a slightly watery custard stage.
Don’t under or over do it.
Step 5: Return to a pan
and put on a medium heat. Keep stirring and wait for the custard to reach the
correct consistency. DO NOT BOIL.
Step 6: Now, this is when
I added the puree of a pineapple I roasted with cinnamon. You can also add strawberry
puree, chocolate etc. Go wild with the flavour choices if you want but be wary
with some ingredients as they can cause the custard to split. If you want a
softer ice-cream try adding beaten (meringue style) egg white or cream to the
mix half-way through the next step.
Step 7: Pass through a sieve and put into an ice-cream maker. After that, just let the ice-cream maker do its thing. You’ll have Grade A ice-cream in no time. If you don’t have an ice-cream maker, you can put the custard in a container and into the freezer (preferably allow the custard to cool before doing this). You then stir it every half-an-hour or so until you have a tasty and creamy treat to eat.
If you need a recipe to
help make it first time, that’s fine. If you need accurate quantities to feel
comfortable, that’s okay, but trust me: learn how to make custard and you can
be a master of puddings in no time.
Literary Scribbles 