Buckwheat + Honey Madeleines

 Prep Time : 15 Minutes | Cook Time : 6 Minutes | Total Time : 1 hour | Difficulty : Moderate

Hello my lovelies! I love to experiment with different flours. One of my all-time favourite books is Alice Medrich’s Flavour Flours. I made the buckwheat genoise sponge from that book and it was utterly delicious. It set my little brain in motion. Wouldn’t buckwheat madeleines be a great idea? As a jumping off point I made my normal recipe with a 100% substitution of buckwheat flour and swapped the butter for oil on Alice’s recommendation. And it was excellent. No tweaking required. The cakes are bouncy and soft. The amazing nuttiness of the buckwheat comes through. The only addition is a tiny lemon drizzle to give a little sharp contrast. Whenever I make madeleines I kick myself for not making them more often. There’s a little bit of fiddling making sure you prep the pans properly but with a stand mixer they actually take very little effort at all. No more than any cupcake. Less really. And you’re meant to enjoy them straight away. My kind of cake. These have the added bonus of being both dairy and gluten free. Everyone should get to have cake.

Heat the oven to 220C (425F). We need to grease and flour the pans. To stay on the dairy and gluten free path brush the pans with melted coconut oil and dust with cornstarch, rice flour or buckwheat flour. Go over the edges of the wells in case the cakes rise past the edges. Just to be on the safe side.

Whisk the eggs and sugar until thick and pale. The mixture should hold a ribbon the surface for a second or two before sinking back in.

Add the honey and whisk until combined. With the mixer running on high, add the oil a little at a time until it is completely incorporated. It will look the same but a bit more glossy and a little darker depending on what type of honey you used.

The next bit requires a softer touch. Sift the buckwheat flour, salt and baking powder into the bowl.

Using a rubber spatula gently fold the dry ingredients in. Make sure you scoop under the batter to check for pockets of flour. Stop as soon as everything is mixed in.

We are going to bake one pan at a time so we can watch them and not bake them for too long. Scoop a tablespoon into each well of one pan. Don’t fill both pans just yet – if you leave the batter sitting in them it soaks into the prep you did and the cakes are more likely to stick.

Bake the madeleines for 5 to 7 minutes. In my oven they take exactly 6 minutes. Because they have honey in them they will get quite dark on top. This is perfectly fine. What you are watching for is for the cakes to puff up out of their well and then start to settle a bit. As soon as they start to settle whip them out!

As they cakes cool the tops will settle back to almost level. Let them cool in the pans for a minute or two to set up.

While they’re still hot give the pan a sharp tap on the bench along a long side. The cakes should start to tumble out. If any are still clinging on turn the pan and tap the other long side.

Put the cakes on a wire rack to cool and bake the second pan. If you have a few tablespoons of batter left over don’t fret. No right-minded person cleans out and re-greases the pan to bake off the last little bit. Drizzle with a little lemon glaze. Or white chocolate.

Put your feet up and eat cake.

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