Tags
coconut cake, dainty cake recipe, girly tea time treat, high tea recipe, Lime & Coconut Madeleines, petite cakes
To me, Madeleines are the epitome of sophisticated daintiness – they make me want to put on lace gloves and have a fancy high tea. These miniature French sponge cakes are traditionally baked in a special pan with scalloped holes, resulting in petite sea shell-shaped treats. To add to their girly appeal, I decided to dip them in white icing and fine dessicated coconut, making them appear dusted in soft snow. The limes add a fresh edge to these otherwise sweet cakes, but if you can’t get hold of them, simply use lemons. (In all honesty, I only had the season’s first green lemons at hand, which tasted more of limes than lemons; hence the name of this recipe.) My Madeleine pans, handed down to me by my grandmother, also aren’t perfectly traditional, yielding cakes that are rounder than the traditional Madeleine. But let’s not split hairs – they still leave the pretty shell impression on the back and for daintiness purposes, that’s enough. (Makes 30)
125 g butter, at room temperature
350 ml castor sugar
5 ml vanilla essence
3 large eggs
625 ml cake flour
20 ml baking powder
2.5 ml salt
200 ml milk
finely grated zest and rind of 3 limes or 2 lemons
500 ml icing sugar
250 ml dessicated coconut
Preheat the oven to 180°C. Grease the insides of three Madeleine pans with a knob of butter.
Using an electric beater, beat the butter and sugar together until pale and creamy. Add the vanilla essence.
Add the eggs one at a time, beating well in between every addition.
Sieve the flour, baking powder and salt together. Fold into the butter mixture, alternating with the milk.
Scoop the batter into the prepared pans, filling each hole about two thirds of the way.
Bake until golden and a skewer comes out clean (about 25 minutes). Allow the Madeleines to cool in the pans for 5 minutes before turning them onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Mix the lime zest and juice with the icing sugar. Dip the top or bottom surface (depending on your preference) of each Madeleine into the icing, then into the coconut.
Allow the icing to set completely before storing the Madeleines in an airtight container.