Lemon Glazed Madeleines

I’ve been meaning to make Madeleines for years.  I’m a little slow on the uptake at times.  I bought a lovely Madeleine tin in Lakeland in 2009 with the usual good intentions but it sat in my cupboard untouched.  Until today.
A Madeleine is a traditional small, dainty cake from the Lorraine region in Northeastern France.  Recipes can vary enormously, but they are made from a genoise cake batter which involves beating together the eggs and sugar vigorously until the mixture is very thick and pale.  Now I have no idea if  this recipe is traditional or authentic  but I can tell you it made beautiful, light, buttery, lemony cakes that were a joy to eat!  I finished my madeleines off with a lemon glaze, inspired by a recipe from David Lebovitz.
Lemon Glazed Madeleines from The Australian Women’s Weekly Home Baked
2 eggs
2 tablespoons caster sugar
2 tablespoons icing sugar
2 teaspoons finely grated lemon zest
35g Self raising flour
35g Plain flour
75g butter, melted
1 tablespoon lemon juice
Preheat oven to 200C/180 fan assisted. Grease a 12 hole madeleine tin.
Melt the butter and set aside to cool.
Beat eggs, sugar, sifted icing sugar and lemon zest together with an electric mixer until the mixture is very pale and thick. Sift the flours over the egg mixture. Pour the butter and lemon juice down the side of the bowl then fold ingredients together, taking care not to knock too much air out of the mixture. Drop spoonfuls of the mixture into your tin. My madeleine tin seemed quite shallow so I only needed a teaspoons worth of mixture in each hole.
Bake for 8-10 minutes. Remove tray from the oven and tap the hot tin firmly on the workbench to release the madeleines. *I was a little scared to do this…but it worked perfectly! As long as you grease your tin well it should be fine…I used Dr Oekter cake release spray*
For the Glaze
75g Icing Sugar
1/2 tablespoon Lemon juice
1 tablespoon water
While the cakes are baking, simply mix the ingredients for the glaze together until smooth. When the madeleines are cool enough to handle, dip each cake in the glaze, turning them over so they are coated on both sides. Scrape off any excess glaze with a butter knife.
Most madeleine recipes tell you to rest the batter for a few hours but this particular one doesn’t mention doing so. However I still popped the batter in the fridge for an hour because it suited me at the time…my madelelines didn’t have the “hump” (!!) you often see (apparently due to the the cold rested batter being placed in the hot oven) but they were definitely
none the worse for it.
Best eaten the day they are made, but I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that…:-)

I’m entering these madeleines in the Classic French April challenge, organised by Jen of Blue Kitchen Bakes Thank you Jen for giving me the push I needed to finally christen my madeleine tin!