Madeleine Cookies

Madeleines

After tucking the boys into bed last night, Jeremy and I sat down together and began sharing the events of our days with each other, we only lasted a few moments before we were on the same page of wanting sweets.  We found a few sugar cookies left from last week, but it wasn't hitting the spot for us.  We raided the last of our gummie bears from our Confectionary Corner and resumed our conversation while watching our taped shows from the evening.  To avoid disappointment again tonight with the lack of sugar in the house, the boys and I decided to make Daddy another one of his favorite treats ... MADELEINES

I have spent most of my morning and afternoon doing more laundry -yesterday I did all the clothing between the boys, Jeremy and myself which left the sheets, towels, rugs, blankets and duvet covers for today.  In between loads of laundry, steps of the cookies were done which made our day productive AND fun.

If madeleines are new to you, they are spongy cookie-cakes that bake in a shell like pan.  To spruce them up a bit and add a bit of Valentine flare, we dipped them in chocolate and decorated them too.

Since all of these pieces didn't fit in the boy's mailbags, I surprised them with the pan and a few ingredients as the clues to what we were making today.

Shocking I know, but Braydon only cared about the chocolate as he followed me around the kitchen handing the bag to me saying, open, open, open, open ... it went on for quite some time, but you get the idea!

Cole grabbed his stool to help reach the counter ...

... and Braydon grabbed the mixer- don't you love his hair?!  He just woke up from his nap :)

We preheated our oven to 375 degrees and in a bowl we mixed together 4 eggs and 2/3 c sugar.  You need to beat the eggs well into the sugar for about 5 minutes until it has this fluffy texture.

Then beat in 1 tsp vanilla -and then slowly pour in 1 c flour.

The texture should then look like this.  Now, melt 1/2 c butter to fold in.

Fold in half the butter until it is well blended and then fold in the second half of the butter.  

Oil your madeleine pan well to ensure easy release of the cookies when they are done baking.

Fill each shell with 2 tbsp batter and then bake for about 12 minutes.  Bake the cookies until the top springs back when lightly touched.  When done baking, the cookies should fall out of the pan- cool on a cookie sheet. 

As you can see, Braydon was eager to have a snack!

While I prepared a second batch to bake, the boys tested them out.

While the cookies were cooling, I prepared the chocolate to dip the cookies in.

This is the chocolate you SHOULDN'T use!!  I opened this package and let the boys try a piece only to find Braydon spitting it out into his hand- I looked up at Cole and he had a sour look on his face and he said, Mommy, this chocolate tastes like coffee!!  Yes, Cole does know what coffee tastes like ... I am a bit of a coffee addict and he has had a taste here and there ... I noticed that I had opened the unsweetened baking chocolate, not the semi sweet baking chocolate ... so we went for round two!

This IS what you want to use!!

I put the chocolate disks in a microwave safe bowl, changed the cooking power to 5 instead of 10 to make sure I didn't burn the chocolate and cooked it for 2 minutes- just enough to melt it.

We then got our red and pink sanding sugars, set out a piece of wax paper and got started on dipping our madeleines in our chocolate and sprinkling sugar on top!

To make the sugaring step a little smoother, I mixed the two colors in a bowl.

We then dipped and sprinkled

Next, I took a decorating pen from the pantry.  These pens are awesome- you have to melt them to use which helps the drawing and use of them to apply smoother lines.

I put boiling water in a cup and let the pen sit in the cup for about 7 minutes, just enough to melt the inside of the pen- you will know when it is ready to use when you massage the pen, it will be smooth and pliable, rather then being stiff.

love

xo

We then decorated our cookies and placed them in the refrigerator to allow the chocolate to harden.

We can't wait to surprise Daddy with his treat tonight when he gets home!  In the mean time, we are going to put our clean sheets on our beds, have a bath and cuddle up to read our story for the night!