Among chocolate’s many merits are its ability to play well with other flavors. I love chocolate and mint, chocolate and raspberry, chocolate and cherry, chocolate and ginger and especially chocolate and citrus. When I was in college, I used to make myself a hot chocolate by brewing orange or lemon tea and then adding a packet of cocoa powder. That was powerfully good stuff.
Another little treat that I love is a buttery madeleine. I like them so much that I started making them at home. I bought a madeleine pan with shallow, shell-shaped cups, giving madeleines that classic mollusk shape. A recipe for orange madeleines came with my pan and that’s my fool-proof recipe. It has never gone wrong. My husband and daughter gobble them up while they’re still warm from the oven and sprinkled with powdered sugar.
I shared that recipe in my column a couple years ago but this year I thought I’d try something different. I’ve never had a chocolate madeleine and it seemed like the perfect marriage of two of my favorite things. How could that go awry, especially with a little orange zest? Answer: oh so many ways. I produced something that’s maybe technically ingestible but too salty and unpleasantly lumpy. I’m not talking about the signature hump or “belly” that all madeleines have. I’m talking about weird lumps inside the madeleines that are like chewing on corn kernels.
I have included the adjusted recipe so that you can avoid the same dismal fate I endured. In the meantime, here is a litany of my woes.
The recipe called for unsalted butter, but all I had was salted butter. Additionally, the batter requires melted chocolate as well as cocoa powder. I could have gone to the grocery store to get those two things but in that moment it just seemed like a bridge too far. I forged onward, ignoring the lookout in the crow’s nest yelling, “Iceberg, right ahead!”
My first mistake was neglecting to leave the salt out of the dry ingredients. I also briefly lost my grip on the salt container and added perhaps a wee bit more salt than the recipe called for. The consequence was that later, when I added the stick of salted butter, I created Saltmageddon.
My second mistake was trying to melt Hershey’s Kisses in the microwave. I had a whole box left over from Valentine’s Day and I figured they’d work well enough. It turns out that, instead of melting, Kisses keep their kissy shapes while developing the consistency of something between fudge and chalk. But I didn’t have any other chocolate to melt. I mean, I could have broken into my husband’s dark chocolate stash, but I’ve been married to him for 30 years and I sure as heck know better than to take that risk. When the man needs chocolate, he needs chocolate.
So I mixed the gunky chocolate with the salty batter and spooned it into the madeleine pan. I knew this whole endeavor would likely go pear-shaped but even so I took the extra step of chilling the dough and the pan, which is supposed to help create those signature madeleine humps, though it didn’t seem to make a sliver of difference. None of it mattered anyway because the madeleines teetered on the liminal edge of edibility. Even the bright snap of citrus was somehow rendered bitter. Bah, humbug.
The final indignity was that I overfilled the shell-cups and the madeleines oozed over the sides while baking, giving each madeleine a sort of Saturn’s ring or maybe Batman’s utility belt. But even the Dark Knight couldn’t save these monstrosities. In my defense, it’s easy to overfill the cups because the cups are so shallow. Each madeleine only needs about a tablespoon of batter. I would have gone back to the drawing board and made a second batch, but I was out of flour.
It was hard to throw out two dozen madeleines. I wondered — could I use them to make bread pudding? Or maybe Christmas ornaments? Or to throw at carolers?
The problem is, they looked so delicious. My eyes were saying, “Yes, get me into that tasty cake situation over there!” But two or three bites into the madeleine, my taste buds pumped the brakes. “Now hold on a minute,” said my taste buds. “This ain’t right. What in tarnation is this salty lumpcake that I’ve been bamboozled into eating?” (My tastebuds sound like Foghorn Leghorn, for some reason.) Even now, knowing what I know, I’m looking longingly at the terrible madeleines and thinking they can’t be that bad. Against all evidence to the contrary, my brain is telling me to go eat one. Why, brain? Why?
I did do one good thing, though, and that’s add cinnamon, which tastes wonderful with chocolate and orange. Or maybe it doesn’t taste good. I don’t know! It’s hard to tell with all the salt and lumps.
Chocolate Orange Madeleines
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon (optional)
3 large eggs
⅔ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of one orange (about 1½ tablespoons)
1 tablespoon orange juice
1 stick butter (½ cup), melted
½ cup dark chocolate (i.e., candy bars or chocolate chips), melted
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Melt butter and set aside. Mix flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and cinnamon in a bowl. Zest one whole orange and mix with eggs, sugar, orange juice and vanilla extract. Whisk vigorously until combined. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and stir until just combined. Set aside. Melt dark chocolate (either in a small double boiler or in 30-second bursts in the microwave). Fold butter into batter and then fold melted chocolate into batter. Spoon small amounts of batter into a well-buttered madeleine pan or use muffin cups or mini-muffin cups. Each cup should be filled only 2/3 full; do not fill up to rim or the batter will overflow while baking. (For muffin or mini-muffin pans, you don’t have to be so careful, but even so, don’t use more than a heaping tablespoon of batter.) Bake for 8 or 9 minutes. Invert the madeleine pan over a wire rack and tap the pan to release the madeleines. Allow to cool and sprinkle with powdered sugar.
