Sandrine and her madeleines

In the first few chapters of The Witch of Painted Sorrows we find our main character, Sandrine, spending quality time with her grandmother, or grand-mére, in their Parisian appartement. They come together to talk about some very recent and significant events while enjoying some lush, hot chocolate and some madeleines. It is of course de rigueur for a scene like this to get the gourmande in me yearning to be magically transported to Sandrine's French salon so I could enjoy both the gossip and the treats. I needed to make these magical madeleines.

I had never attempted these buttery, shell-shaped cookies. To me, they were too French - their magic attached to their location, such as a café strew along the Quartier Latin, to be able to enjoy here. I felt I could not do them any justice while sitting at my kitchen counter. These spatial limitations evanesce, of course, when you are engrossed in a book. These madeleines were going to happen or I would not do justice to Sandrine's story.

First, I had to get a madeleine pan. Note to the Blogosphere: while places like Sur la Table are the equivalent of sex shops to foodies, they also tend to be expensive. If you're really jonesing for some kitchen or home decor stuff, try to go to a Marshalls, TJ Maxx or Homegoods. Oh Homegoods, you touch me in all the right places. RRrrrrRRRrrr. I found a $20 madeleine pan for $5! It was fate!

If you don't have a Homegoods or similar store in your area, Amazon is pretty great too. I found this one, which is similar to mine for $10.

I then went through all my cookbooks to see if there was a recipe somewhere in there - no luck. I then channeled Jacques Pépin's simplicity and decided that the internets would be my be all and end all. I found a beautiful, marvelous and visually stunning recipe on TheKitchn that would serve as my starting point. This was going to be fab.

I had recently made some fresh butter from some leftover heavy cream I had in the fridge. I had adorned the butter with some cinnamon and vanilla, which would go perfectly with the rest of the traditional ingredients. Everything else was pretty easy to get together from my cupboards: flour, eggs, sugar, lemon and lemon zest.

The trick with madeleines is to have an hour or two on-hand to make them. The combination of ingredients is nothing complicated, but you do have to allow the batter and glazed pan to rest in the fridge for about an hour. This step is incredibly important because the cold pan and cold (and super thick) batter are what hold everything together.

Once everything was assembled and rested, I portioned it by heavy spoonfuls in the pan and popped it in the oven for about 12 minutes. My pan was larger than the one in the recipe, so it filled up with more batter.

Voilá! French madeleines to go with your tea or hot chocolate.

Lessons learned:

1. Madeleines can be made with different flavors: lemon, chocolate, vanilla, spiced, etc.

2. My large pan holds large amounts of batter, but the batter does rise and expand quite a bit, so maybe just add a little less than you think.

3. There is no special place you need to be at to enjoy a decadent tea-time treat. You just need books and a healthy appetite! :)