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Dessert

Madeleines

Lemon madeleines are small sponge cakes flavored with lemon rind and juice, topped with a sugared lemon glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 92,116 recipes. Both carry phenylacetaldehyde, which smells hawthorne, honey. The science ↓

Madeleines

Oven, in the book's wordsA cool oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a cool oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the batter

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a bowl, combine sugar, lemon rind, and lemon juice.

  3. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs and mix well.

  4. In another bowl, mix salt and baking soda with flour, then add to the first mixture, beating thoroughly.

  5. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and finish

  1. Pour the batter into small tins and bake for about 20 minutes.

  2. Once cooled, spread the tops with a mixture of confectioners' sugar, boiling water, and lemon juice.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together92,116 recipes

    Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).

  2. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Lemon + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,404 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks add richness and moisture, while whipped whites add lift and a light, airy structure.
All-purpose flour
Provides the starch and gluten network that gives the madeleines their body once baked.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps the batter brown lightly at the edges while baking.
Baking soda
Reacts with the lemon juice's acidity to help the batter rise and open up in the oven.
Lemon juice
Adds bright acidity that balances sweetness and helps the baking soda react.

The step that matters

Folding in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that gives the batter its lift. Stirring them in too vigorously deflates the foam, leaving dense madeleines, so fold gently until just combined.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, egg, flour):

  1. Raisinfits better
  2. Vanillafits better
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, egg, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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