Madeleines

We more or less followed the recipe given on the 101 cookbooks blog. It took us a while to find a recipe that called for the (traditional) browned butter.
Ingredients

• 1.5 sticks butter
• 3/4c flour plus a little
• 4 eggs
• pinch of salt
• 2/3c sugar
• zest of one lemon
• 1tsp vanilla
• madeleine pan

Preheat the oven to 350. In a sauce pan, melt the butter over low heat. Keep it over low heat and the butter will start to foam. The foam will subside and then you will start to get some browning of the milk solids. Take it off the heat at this point and continue stirring for a little while, then pour through a mesh strainer lined with a paper towel. Set aside to cool. Meanwhile, in a bowl, beat together the eggs and salt with an electric egg beater. Slowly add the sugar, and continue to beat until doubled or tripled in volume and the mixture is ribbony - 2 minutes or so. Now gently whisk in everything else.

Prepare the madeleine pans with PAM and a light dusting of flour (we put white flour in a mesh sieve and tapped it over the molds). Fill the molds about 3/4 full, and bake for 12-14 minutes, until the edges of the madeleines are just barely browned. Remove from the oven and turn out to cool. Dust with powdered sugar to serve.

Thoughts: Claire felt that they were a LITTLE on the dry side, though the flavor was good. She mainly questioned the texture. Maybe cook them a couple minutes less next time? I thought they were just great. Maybe I'd use orange zest instead of lemon? I'm not entirely sure. Possibly I'd consider adding a pinch of baking powder (or is that cheating?)...

Disaster Index: 1.5/10