Spaghetti with Lemon and Olive Oil
So…….
it’s been really hard to break the silence.
I’ve started and stopped and erased posts at least 5 times since we last spoke about absurdly excessive cookies, which was 2 whole months ago!!! And as more and more days passed, the more I felt that I had to present a worthy post to compensate for the length of silence… which at this point, would have required something made with several pounds of butter, deep-fried, covered in dark chocolate and gold leaf, with unicorns and rainbows shooting out of it.
But I didn’t want you all to think I was giving you the cold shoulder or that my kitchen had burned down, it’s just that as I’ve ramped up productivity and increased hours in the lab in hopes of being able to schedule a thesis defense date (WHICH I NOW HAVE!!!!), the rest of my life has suffered as a result. It’s not all Lab’s fault. I also have been attempting to plan a wedding of some sort. And have been house-hunting. And have been looking at cute puppy pictures. And trying to figure out what to do with my life post-Ph.D. (read: find a JOB). Which pretty much has left my kitchen devoid of ingredients for dinner and cookies, or even PIECES OF FRUIT!
I also reached that time of the year, as I do every year, when I get tired (so very very tired) of the painful elusiveness of spring/summer and consecutive days over 70 degrees F. Apparently it wasn’t enough that we suffered through record amounts of snow in all of January, we were also tortured by snow on April Fool’s and had to endure a soul-sucking, rainy, gloomy, gray May, which in addition to extended hours in lab, only succeeded in making me more cranky and restless, unable to focus on updating tumblrs with non-depressing posts.
But now we’ve FINALLY had a week of consecutive days of over 70 degree weather and sunshine (well, except that freak tornado-induced thunderstorm on Wednesday, what WAS that?!), and my mood has lifted considerably. I want to spend every minute I can outside, thawing out, ridding my body of any memory of the last 6 months, and soaking up the sun’s Vitamin D-filled rays to replenish the severe deficit from winter. And warmer weather means spring/summer produce- some of my favorites: berries berries berries, peaches, apricots, rhubarb, and barbeque. Yes, I know that barbeque is not a produce, but I just want to grill everything in sight and eat it IN or WITH a salad.. which kind of makes it produce, right?
Anyway, because the weather has changed and my demanding stomach no longer craves heavily sauced pastas, braised meats and mashed potatoes, we have been slowly transitioning to lighter dinner fare, such as this lemon olive oil spaghetti with shrimp. It’s still satisfyingly carby and just creamy enough, but made lighter from an ample amount of fresh lemon zest and juice.
I went on a real lemon kick, as you’ll see in the next few lemon-centric posts as I work my way from a backlog of April and May recipes, since the bright zing of lemon citrus can really brighten any uncharacteristically gloomy and cold in-between-winter-and-spring/summer day!
Best Buttermilk Pancakes
It’s the weekend. And that means breakfast at home.
This weekend? A favorite… pancakes.
My parents often made pancakes on the weekends when I was growing up and it was always felt like such a treat. The pancakes came from a quick mix in a yellow box, and until I left for college, I thought that was the way everyone made pancakes. In fact, they are still the pancake that I compare all other pancakes to!
These buttermilk pancakes are my current from-scratch favorite. I like to add fruit to the inside (and outside) of my pancakes to help alleviate the guilt of eating cake (smothered in real maple syrup) for breakfast. But the cakes are light, fluffy, and oh-so-addictive. The hardest part about making pancakes is not eating all of them as I cook them (two at a time on a medium-sized saucepan is not quite efficient enough for my empty stomach in the morning)!
Today I added a few fresh blueberries and lemon zest. It was a perfect way start to my Sunday.
Lemon Blackberry Olive Oil Cake
I have been in denial about the arrival of Fall for the last month. I have nothing against Fall itself, in fact, since moving out here to the Northeast and witnessing the dynamic kaleidoscope of color in the trees, it’s arguably the best season out here. I love the crisp coolness in the air (usually very welcome after months of the sweltering summer humidity) and the fashion accessories that come with it: scarves, hats, boots, and jackets. Every year, I eagerly await pumpkin-spiced lattes, pumpkin scones, and pumpkin ale; I look forward to the arrival of varieties of squash and apples and their associated recipes of soups and pies. The only part of Fall that I DON’T look forward to is what inevitably follows Fall…the season that shall not be named (but rhymes with splinter and starts with a ‘w’). But now that we’ve already turned on the heater a few nights this past week and I’ve come down with my annual summer-to-fall-season-change bug, I can no longer deny that Fall is HERE.
As a corollary to my denial, I have not yet allowed myself to start baking with fall produce. Instead, I’ve been scrambling to bake with the last of summer’s fantastic bounty (peaches, berries, and plums) before they disappear until next year.
Enter this delightfully summery lemon-infused berry olive oil cake. Lemon zest is rubbed into the sugar, to release the essential oils, and when combined with fruity olive oil creates a mild, yet elegantly flavored cake. I put in some beautiful blackberries that I spotted at Whole Foods, and am so glad that I did because I haven’t seen them around since!
The cake is moist and rich, perfumed with lemon and olive oil. The lemon flavoring reminds me of this fantastic lemon confection because both cakes merely suggests the essence of lemon rather than smacks you in the face with lip-puckering acidity. But this cake is heart healthy in comparison, with less than half the amount of butter and egg yolks. I baked two of these beauties in one week (another testimony to the recipe’s greatness- an everyday cake that can be baked on a weekday!); after tasting the first, it didn’t survive to see outside of our apartment so I had to bake a second to share with others!
4th of July Cupcakes
I’m excited to celebrate July 4th over the weekend: enjoying the PERFECT summertime weather (sunny, warm, NOT humid), watching World Cup quaterfinal matches, hanging out at a few BBQs, being awestruck by the annual FIREWORK EXTRAVAGANZA on the Charles River, and of course, eating eating EATING!
To kick off the holiday weekend, I baked these cupcakes and decorated them patriotically with blueberries and raspberries. The cake itself is flavored with lemon zest, fresh lemon juice, and almond extract. The crumb is moist and slightly dense, due to the addition of ricotta cheese. I tucked away a raspberry in the center each cake by filling each cup about halfway, adding the raspberry, then filling the rest of the cup.
This is my quick and efficient way of cooling baked goods… on my windowsill.
Decorating the cupcakes was fun; I used a cream cheese frosting as my “white,” blueberries for “blue,” and raspberries for “red.”
And the raspberry in the middle, once baked, becomes a sweet and tart jammy filling surprise!
I hope everyone enjoys their weekend, and hopefully gets to take a day (or two?) off!
Poppy Seed Lemon Cake
I should be posting about strawberries and rhubarb and embracing the long-awaited appearance of spring/summer produce. (AND WEATHER!!! yippeee!! I think everyone within EARSHOT of me knows I’ve been eagerly awaiting this time of the year since last December!) Plus I’ve already posted a citrus-y dessert a week ago, and here I am, back with another lemon-flavored confection. Don’t worry, strawberries and rhubarb will make their grand appearance soon!
This ain’t your average lemon poppy seed cake/muffin/loaf. Oh no. Deb from SmittenKitchen correctly re-christened this beautiful cake as a POPPY SEED lemon cake, re-distributing the emPHAsis on the RIGHT sylLAble because it really IS uniquely less lemon and much more poppy seed. I had never realized how POP-y poppy seeds actually are… when present in large enough numbers to capture your attention, poppy seeds really crackle and crunch quite animatedly, and add a pleasant nuttyness to the cake. So for the first time in the history of the lemon poppy seed show, the lemon plays the supporting role to the poppy seed STAR!
The minimal amount of lemon zest serves to simply perfume the cake with the essence of lemon without ever reaching the tart acidity so common in lemon-flavored baked goods (which is entirely lovely in its own right.. it is just not THIS cake). The cake also has the most interesting texture, coming from 2 sticks worth of melted butter, 8 egg yolks, and only 1 cup of flour/cornstarch, and NO leavening agents. At first I thought the cake was a bit dry… but then I realized it was just rich… and dense with the flavor of BUTTER, the scent of lemon, and the crunch of a seemingly infinite number of poppy seeds (yet still texturally light, if possible). omg.
The only difficult part about this cake (besides coming to terms with the fact that I pretty much ate all 2 sticks of butter and 8 eggs worth by myself) was that despite liberal greasing and flouring of the baking pan, my cake still stuck a bit, as you can see here by the patches revealing the impressive density of poppy seeds.
Poppy Seed Lemon Cake
from Smitten Kitchen, originally from Kurt Gutenbrunner via Food & Wine
2/3 cup sugar
8 large egg yolks
1 large whole egg
1 1/2 tablespoons finely grated lemon zest (from 2 lemons)
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cornstarch
Pinch of salt (edited to add this)
2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, melted and cooled a bit
1/2 cup poppy seeds (I erred on the side of caution, being unaware of how amazing poppy seeds can be, an used a heaping 1/3, but next time i would go the whole 1/2 cup!)
- Preheat the oven to 325°F Butter and flour an 8-inch fluted Bundt or tube pan generously (I only had a 10 inch, so used that). Butter the dull side of a 10-inch piece of foil.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk, beat the sugar with the egg yolks and whole egg at medium-high speed until the mixture is pale yellow and very fluffy, about 8 minutes.
- Beat in the lemon zest.
- Sift the flour and cornstarch over the egg mixture and fold in along with the pinch of salt with a rubber spatula.
- At medium speed, beat in the butter, then beat in the poppy seeds.
- Pour the batter into the prepared pan and cover tightly with the buttered foil. Bake for 45 minutes, or until the cake pulls away from the side of the pan and a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Remove the foil and let the cake cool in the pan on a rack for 15 minutes. Invert the cake onto the rack and let cool completely before serving, at least 30 minutes.
Lemon Meringue Pie
I baked this pie. For someone that I love.
And then while putting away two leftover mini-pies, I masterfully managed to DROP them both. On my leg, on its way to the kitchen floor. Meringue does not come out of cotton easily. Smooth, I know.
Lemon Meringue Pie
from America’s Test Ktichen’s Baked Illustrated
This recipe was interesting for a two reasons:
- The pie crust involved an extra step of rolling it out in graham cracker crumbs… this is to prevent soggyness from custard-y fillings. I found that though the recipe claimed you would not taste the graham crackers, I still could, and would omit them next time and just risk having a soggy crust.
- Both the lemon curd and meringue topping involved a heated cornstarch, sugar, water mixture.. which I found strange as many other recipes I’ve seen previously do not include this in either the curd or meringue. When heated, the mixture becomes a snotty consistency in which you either add eggs to for the curd, or becomes added to the meringue. For the curd, adding the eggs to heated “snot” resulted in some uneven cooking of the eggs, resulting in some small chunks of cooked egg solids (think egg drop soup, but like.. maybe only 5% of the mixture) instead of a completely homogenous filling. Addition of the lemon juice, zest, and butter did help to hide this somewhat, but the future, I would use another lemon curd recipe that did not use this step. For the meringue, the “snot” did not totally combine into the meringue, so I found it to be totally unnecessary, except if its purpose was to stress me out.
I halved the recipe to make 3 small pies in mini tart pans.
Pie Dough for Pre-baked Pie Shell (for 1 single 9 inch pie)
1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling out the dough
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon sugar
3 tablespoons vegetable shortening, chilled
4 tablespoons butter, cut into 1/4 inch pieces
4 tablespoons ice-cold water
4 tablespoons graham cracker crumbs, for rolling out the dough to coat the shell
- Mix the flour, sugar, salt in a bowl. Cut in the butter and shortening until the mixture becomes the texture of coarse sand.
- Sprinkle water over the mixture and with a rubber spatula, use a folding motion to mix. Use only enough water so that the dough sticks together briefly when squeezed.
- Flatten the dough into a 4 inch disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate at least 1 hour before rolling.
- Sprinkle the work surface with 2 tablespoons of graham cracker crumbs, and the 2 remaining crumbs on the dough itself, so that the crumbs will coat the dough while rolling out. Roll until size desired for the pie. Carefully ease dough into pie plate, gentle pressing into the pan bottom. Trim the dough edges to extend about 1/2 inch beyond the edge of the pan, and fold the overhang under itself. Refrigerate the dough-lined pie plate until firm 40 mintues, then freeze 20 minutes.
- Heat oven to 375 degrees. Line pie dough with aluminum foil and distribute pie weights (or uncooked beans or rice ) into the pan. Bake about 25-30 minutes until the dough looks dry and is light in color. Remove the foil and weights and continue to bake the crust until light golden brown, an additional 5-6 minutes.
Lemon Filling
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups cold water
6 large egg yolks
1 tablespoon grated zest
1/2 cup lemon juice (2-3 lemons)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- Mix sugar, cornstarch, salt, and water in a large nonreactive pan. Bring mixture to a simmer over medium heat, whisking frequently as the mixture begins to thicken.
- When the mixture begins to simmer and turns translucent, whisk in the egg yolks, 2 at a time.
- Whisk in the zest, then the lemon juice, and finally the butter. Bring the mixture to a good simmer, whisking constantly.
- Remove from heat, place plastic wrap directly on the surface of the filling to keep it hot and prevent a skin from forming.
Meringue
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1/3 cup water
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 cup sugar
4 large egg whites
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Mix the cornstarch with the water in a small saucepan; bring to a simmer, whisking occasionally at the beginning and more frequently as the mixture thickens. When the mixture starts to simmer and turns translucent, remove from the heat.
- Mix the cream of tartar and sugar together. Beat the egg whites and vanilla until frothy. Beat in the sugar mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time until the sugar is incorporated and the mixture forms soft peaks.
- Add the cornstarch mixture, 1 tablespoon at a time; beat until the meringue forms stiff peaks.
Assembling the pie
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Warm up lemon filling (remove the plastic wrap) on low heat during the last minute or so of beating the meringue to ensure the filling is hot. (the hot filling will cook the meringue from the bottom up in addition to the oven cooking the outside of the meringue)
- Pour the hot filling into the pie shell. Using a rubber spatula, immediately distribute the meringue evenly around the endge and then the center of the pie to keep it from sinking into the filling. Make sure the meringue attaches to the piecrust to prevent shrinking.
- Bake pie until meringue is golden brown- about 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool to room temperature. Best when served the day of.
Warm Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad with Tahini
Sometimes you just shouldn’t mess with a good thing. The combination of ingredients in this salad totally captured my attention and I couldn’t wait to make it. And it was so tasty! The subtly spiced squash plays so nicely with the chickpeas, and the dense, earthy textures are not too heavy, due to the brightness of cilantro, the crunch of a bit of onion, and an awesome tahini and lemon flavored dressing.
… And yet… I decided to try to tweak it. I felt that the texture of the chickpeas and roasted butternut squash were just too similar, and though the flavors were certainly pleasing to my tastebuds, I was left craving more textural contrast- more crunch! or some pop!
I had seen this post for crispy roasted chickpease and it seemed to be the crunch-factor I was looking for. So I re-made the salad, this time also substituting kabocha for the butternut (just because I’ve wanted to try kabocha squash and wondered if this salad was squash-specific or all-squash-friendly) and roasting the chickpeas as well as the onions (because I prefer my onions a bit mellowed out). I’m sure you can guess the end result of salad version 2.0 based from the opening line of this post… it was not all that. In the interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that my kabocha was under-ripe and roasting did not yield a silky velvety texture (though I think I did like the different flavor of the squash). Also, I forgot to stir around the chickpeas a bit during roasting, which may have resulted in some uneven-ness in texture. The roasted chickpeas are awesome on their own, somewhat akin to corn-nuts, satisfyingly salty and crunchy. But in the salad, it was perhaps too texturally different, and disrupted the harmony between the chickpeas and the squash. Although, again, the kabocha squash was not equivalent to the previous butternut, so actually, who knows! This experience parallels some of my experiences in lab as well; in attempt to make an experiment work better I will adjust several variables at the same time, but the result is usually never better than the original set-up, and I’m left confused as to which adjusted variable caused the experiment to implode (usually it was all of them).
In regards to this salad, after my little deviation, I am even more convinced that the original recipe is perfect just the way it is. I enjoyed the leftover salad (which kept very well in the fridge for a few days) by itself, stuffed inside warmed pita bread, and scooped into my mouth with toasted pita chips!
Warm Butternut Squash and Chickpea Salad with Tahini
adapted from Orangette, original recipe from Casa Mora
1 medium butternut squash (about 2-2 1/2 pound), peeled, seeded, and cut into 1 1/2 inch cubes
1 medium garlic clove, pressed
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
2 tablespoons olive oil
salt
one 15 ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/4 of a medium red onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves
For tahini sauce:
1 medium garlic clove, finely minced (raw garlic, even finely minced, can be a pretty powerful taste, which I am on the fence on, and think i may omit next time)
3 1/2 tablespoon lemon juice
3 tablespoon well-stirred tahini
2 tablespoon water
2 tablespoon olive oil, plus more to taste
- Preheat oven to 425 F
- In a large bowl, combine the butternut squash, garlic, allspice, olive oil, and a good pinch or two of salt. Using a large spoon, or your hands, toss until the squash is evenly coated. Turn them out onto a baking sheet and bake for 15-25 minutes, or until soft. Remove from the oven and cool.
- Meanwhile, make the tahini sauce. In a small bowl, whisk together the garlic and lemon juice. Add the tahini, and whisk to blend. Add the water and olive oil, whisk well, and taste for seasoning. (I whisked all the ingredients together at once to no detriment.) The sauce should have plenty of nutty tahini flavor, but also a little kick of lemon. Add olive oil to tame down the flavors, if needed.
- To assemble the salad, combine the squash, chickpeas, onion, and cilantro in a mixing bowl. Add tahini sauce to taste, and toss carefully to avoid squishing the squash and chickpeas. Alternatively, the tahini sauce can be served on the sized for individual mixing.
The salad keeps well in the fridge, lightly dressed. Save some tahini sauce to serve. Before serving, warm slightly in the microwave; the salad is also good at room-temperature.
Marmalade Cake
The snow wintry mix rain has set in for the last few days, and we supposedly have a few more days of wetness look forward to… but I don’t even really mind because I think I have found my “sunshine-in-a-bite” in this marmalade cake! This rustic cake is moist and coarse-crumbed, rich in toasted nutty-ness with a strong and vibrant citrus flavor that screams HELLO SUNSHINE!!!!!!
This cake certainly packs a punch like no other citrus-flavored baked good I’ve ever had before; this is due to the fact that the recipe calls for boiling a whole orange and lemon until they are soft and squishy (I know, seems crazy! I was so curious! But it totally works!),
then pulverizing the whole orange and lemon rind into a thick paste, which is then added to the cake batter. Yes, pulp, rind, skin, and ALL.
As one can imagine, the addition of the entire fruit, including the rind, adds a bit of gentle bitterness to the cake, which can be a bit off-putting to some. But I really enjoyed it, just as I enjoy a good marmalade, because I would rather savor the slight bitterness in appreciation of the whole entire orange than a tooth-achingly cloying jam. This lovely cake has been aptly named “marmalade cake” by Orangette in celebration of this citrus awesomeness. In addition, the toasted almonds are not only tasty but give heft and weight to the crumb, reinforcing my belief that citrus and almonds are quite the dynamic duo.
Each bite just makes me really happy, and I just can’t help myself from reaching for another slice… and another….
A fresh dusting of powdered sugar resembles freshly fallen snow. (Hopefully the only “snow” I will see for the rest of this winter!!)
Marmalade Cake (Orange, Almond, and Olive Oil Cake)
adapted from Orangette, via Boonville Hotel
The recipe calls for 1 small-medium orange, but I ended up using an orange on the larger size. I suspect this orange also had a pretty thick rind; the basis for this suspicion from having eaten its sibling just a few hours before baking and having found that orange had a thick rind. Next time I will try a smaller orange, or perhaps this similar recipe that uses clementines (very little rind!) instead.
1 small to medium orange
1 lemon
1 cup of toasted almonds (I used blanched slivered almonds and toasted them to golden perfection; Orangette used raw almonds and toasted them)
1 cup all-purpose flour
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2/3 cup olive oil
confectioners’ sugar, for dusting
- Put the orange and lemon in a medium saucepan with enough water to cover (the fruit will float, this is OK). Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; then reduce the heat to medium and simmer for 30 minutes. Drain and cool.
- Meanwhile, toast the almonds. Preheat the oven to 325 F and set a rack to the middle position. Put the almonds on an ungreased sheet pan (I lined with parchment paper) and bake until they are golden and smell warm and toasty, about 10-15 minutes. Set them aside to cool completely. When cool, pulse them in a food processor until finely ground, the texture of coarse sand. Set aside.
- Preheat oven to 350 F, and grease a 9-inch round springform pan.
- When the citrus is cool, cut the lemon in half and scoop out and discard the pulp and seeds. Cut the orange in half and discard the seeds. Put the lemon rind and orange halves in the food processor. Process until a coarse paste forms.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour and baking powder.
- Combine the eggs and salt in a mixing bowl. Beat until foamy, about 3-5 minutes. Gradually beat in the sugar. Mix in the flour mixture. Add the citrus, almonds, and olive oil, and beat on low speed until just incorporated. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and bake for 50-60 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool the cake in its pan on a wire rack. Remove the sides of the pan.
- Before serving, dust the cake with confectioners’ sugar. Alternatively, you could also make a quick glaze with confectioners’ sugar and water, or orange juice.
- Savor the awesomeness of the citrus.
Madeleines
I wanted to bake madeleines before I had ever tasted one. How can you resist those adorable little tea cakes, in all their shell-shaped glory?!
Unfortunately, baking madeleines requires a madeleine pan (OK, you could certainly bake them in muffin tins, but are they really madeleines without the shell shape?). Because there are so many other kitchen gadgets/accessories that can serve multiple purposes that I would love to add to my kitchen, I could never justify buying a pan whose sole purpose was for baking only ONE type of cake that would be baked maybe once a month. Well, until last weekend.
As soon as I had my very own madeleine pan in my possession, I was determined to find a good starting recipe. (The fact that I enthusiastically spent more time performing an exhaustive internet search on madeleine recipes than on any aspect of my own thesis project is just another reason why I am a horrible graduate student.) In my search, I learned a few things about madeleines, and also found some incredibly intriguing flavor combinations (here, here, and here, to name a few) to try next time!
Traditionally, madeleines are baked without any chemical leavening agents (i.e. baking powder); therefore they rely solely upon the incorporation of air into the batter to add volume to the resulting cake. Basically, the eggs get the crap whipped out of them. Or, perhaps more accurately, the air whipped into them. There are many recipes that also include baking powder, and most include a refridgeration step, from one hour to over night or over several days, that seems to aid the leavening process (especially for those recipes that do not include baking powder). Madeleines are characterized not only by the scalloped edges on one side, but also by a large hump on the other side, which demonstrates the amount of leavening achieved.
I chose this recipe to try first, mostly because I did not have time to make them until a weeknight after dinner, and I was eager to taste the final product before I went to bed. This recipe contains no baking powder or refridgeration step, and alas, my madeleines did not end up with humps. They were still amazingly tasty- crispy and crunchy on the outside and delicate and buttery on the inside. The next day, they became softer and denser, but still tasty with a cup of tea. I can’t wait to try more recipes!
Madeleines
from 101cookbooks
makes 24-36 large madeleines
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (6 ounces)
2 tablespoons softened unsalted butter (for greasing pan)
3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
4 large eggs
a pinch fine-grain sea salt
2/3 cups sugar
zest of one large lemon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
powdered sugar
a bit of extra flour for dusting baking pan
- Melt the butter in a small pot over medium heat until brown and gives off a deliciously nutty aroma (OMG the smell is just otherwordly and it makes me seriously consider drinking melted butter…), about 12-20 minutes. Strain using a paper towel over a mesh strainer into a bowl, and allow the butter to cool to room temperature. While waiting for the butter to cool, the rest of the madeleine batter can be prepared.
- Grease each madeleine mold in the pan with softened butter or cooking spray, and dust with flour. Tap out excess flour, all around the pan so that all the molds have been dusted.
- Put the eggs and salt in a bowl. Whip on high speed using an electric mixer until thick and frothy, the eggs should roughly double or triple in volume, about 3 minutes. Continuing to mix on high speed, slowly add the sugar in a steady stream and whip for an additional 2 minutes, or until the mixture is thick and ribbony.
- Add the lemon zest and vanilla, and fold in gently with a spatula until just mixed.
- Sift the flour on top of the egg batter, and gently fold in.
- Add the brown butter, fold in using the spatula. Only stirring enough to bring everything together.
- Spoon the batter into the molds, filling each to about 3/4 full.
- Bake madeleines for 12-14 minutes, or until the edges of the madeleines are golden brown. Remove from the oven and unmold immediately. Cool on wire racks and dust with powdered sugar.
* I baked the first dozen right after the batter was prepared. While the first dozen was baking, I covered the batter and let it sit in the fridge for about an hour and a half. Then I baked a second dozen, and this batch had tiny little humps. I have no idea what chemical processes are occurring in the bowl, but it seems like the cold plus resting time allows the cakes to rise a bit more.
