Chocolate Chilli Madeleines

The good folk at work gave me a voucher for a local kitchen shop for my birthday last year. It took me a while, but I finally spent it - on some silicone Madeleine moulds. Not only have I never made Madeleines before, but I don't remember ever having eaten one either. So, it really was time to change this. I wasn't entirely sure what they should be like, so it was Dan Lepard who I placed my faith in; I based my recipe on his Madeleines de Commercy from Short and Sweet. I used my usual half wholemeal, half white flour mix and substituted the vanilla extract for my homemade chocolate extract as well as swapping some of the flour for cocoa.

This is what I did:

• Melted 75g unsalted butter gently in a small pan then set aside to cool.
• Whisked 2 duck eggs and 75g golden caster sugar together for quite a long time it seemed, using electric beaters. Whisked until the mixture had trebled in volume and was pale and thick.
• Sifted in 90g flour (half spelt, half white), 10g cocoa, 1/4 tsp cayenne and 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda.
• Folded this in as gently as possible trying not to lose too much air from the eggs.
• Poured the butter in down one side of the bowl and folded this in together with 2 tsp chocolate extract until just incorporated.
• Placed a tbsp of the mixture into 12 Madeleine moulds.
• Finding I had quite a bit left over, I divided the remaining mixture between 5 muffin moulds.
• Baked for 10 minutes at 200C until well risen and firm to the touch.
• Turned out onto a wire rack to cool.

Hooray, my first Madeleines were a success. They turned out well, had the classic shell like shape and looked pretty. They tasted buttery, had a nice hit of cocoa and chilli and weren't too sweet. I have no idea what the texture is meant to be like, but these were light and spongy. Unlike Proust, they didn't take me back to my youth, but the Atkins & Potts chocolate spread did, vraiment.