Okay, the cafe I work for catered a fancy/shmancy tea on Sunday. Amongst the little dainties we were supposed to serve was madelines, a sort of small, delicate cake baked in shell shaped individual tins. I’d never done them before but the recipe was straightforward and they seemed to bake beautifully.
Then they wouldn’t come out of the pan. Totally stuck. Okay, I do them again and make ultra sure the pans are well greased. Same thing happens. I didn’t have time to do it a third time, so I got the rest of the items done. And then, since it was cakelike, I cheated and did up a yellow cake mix with the rum flavor and minced lemon peel that the real madelines had. This time I floured the pans and the little cakes came out, although just barely.
Anyone have ideas on what I did wrong? The pans were in beautiful shape, brand new, of good quality metal, not some cheap disposable crap. And BTW, nobody from the tea seemed to notice that anything was different about the madelines!
First, IANAPB.
Yellow cake mix??? You mean like Betty Crocker? No comment. Except that I like madelines. A lot.
Are you turning your madelines out while still hot? Lotsa egg and sugar there, right? And try greasing the molds while they’re hot (preheat them).
Madelines, fresh and made the right (French) way are delicious. Rum? Never done that.
good luck.
Peace,
mangeorge
Mangeorge is right about the greasing…madeline batter and sponge cake batter are very similar, and one of the key things to remember is the flouring. Flour the pans more than you think you need to. You also don’t want to turn them out the the pan while still hot, nor when they’re entirely cool, either…lukewarm is more like it.
One general difficulty with making madelines is the pan itself – all those nooks and crannies – so I wouldn’t pin the blame entirely on yourself.
As for using yellow cake mix…um, well, it’s a huge deviation from the original recipe, but if it works…
Thanks so much for the replies. Cake mix was not what I wanted of course! The first two tries were with the classic batter. I used the recipe from The Joy of Cooking. It looked and was reacting just as described. I did grease the pans kiz but did not flour them, the directions didn’t call for it. And the first time I did try to get them out warm, so the second time I let them cool, still they stuck. The broken madelines were tasty though.
But I had to produce something! This was an important event for my boss and he had had three meetings to set the menu. So in the end, as I said in the OP, I cheated. Today the lady who lent me some of the baking tins came and retrieved them and said she had heard there had been some problems. (My boss, when asked how they were going the day of the tea, had said “The third time will be the charm”) And so I told her that they had stuck the first two tries. And she NEVER mentioned noticing a difference in the taste or texture.
I have seen directions for some cake pans that say not to use the spray type of grease, but to use melted shortening or butter. Maybe that was an issue. And some of the tins were brand new, do they have to be seasoned? I know about seasoning cast iron.
Except that I like madelines. A lot.