My hump, my hump, my lovely (madeleine) hump!

Honey Madeleines
Picture perfect...on their way into Mr. Trashcan

On my continuing and painful search for the perfect madeleine recipe...yeah, you know.

One of the problems with the other recipes was that although the madeleines were tasty, the nice shell pattern wasn't distinguished and the characteristic hump on the back of the madeleine was no where to be found.

I found yet another recipe in Simple French Desserts (page 37). In the instructions, author Jill O'Connor says the secret is to not overbeat the eggs. In all the other recipes, I've been beating the eggs for 3 minutes until "ribbony." Hum, perhaps this is the secret to the hump! (All recipes say you need to refrigerate the dough and I've been doing that.)

I made two batches of the Honey Madeleines. The first one, I followed the recipe and made brown butter. You melt 1 1/2 sticks of butter (to make 12 madeleines - it is best to NOT do the math on the butter intake)...and then allow it to boil while stirring. The milk solids get brown and nutty smelling. After a quick strain to remove the big bits, you let it cool off before adding to the dough.

Can you see the little brown flecks of the brown butter?

Seriously, I opened the oven, saw the madeleines, channeled Fergie (with her hottie Josh) and danced about My Hump. (Luckily for you - no photos)

Really, look at that hump!!

However, the taste was nothing to sing about. It was strangely spongey, sorta moist in all the wrong places, and too buttery or too sweet - I couldn't figure it out.

By the way, I made a second batch of Honey Madeleines to see if the first result was a fluke. This time, I used regular melted butter and didn't brown it. But, the butter wasn't the problem...these also ended up on an extended visit with Mr. Trashcan. (However, I did get another round of awesome humps).

But, as the song says, Big Girls Don't Cry [about yucky madeleines] and I'll try again. I think I might try the "don't over mix the eggs" method with my other recipes and see how they work out...