Light Honey Madeleines

📝 Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 60 g caster sugar + 1 pinch of salt
• 40 g honey
• 150 g plain flour
• ½ sachet baking powder (5 g)
• 60 g unsalted butter
• 50 g plain yoghurt
• ½ lemon (for the zest)
• 10 g unsalted butter + 1 tbsp flour (for the tin)

🍴 Utensils

• Madeleine tin
• Mixing bowl
• Whisk
• Small saucepan
• Pastry brush
• Wire rack

📖 Steps

1. Melt the 60 g butter over a low heat in the small saucepan (or for 30 s in the microwave), add the honey and stir. Leave to cool for 10 min: if it's too hot, the mixture would cook the eggs.
2. In the mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, sugar and salt for 3 min, until the mixture turns pale, frothy and almost doubles in volume.
3. Add the sifted flour and baking powder along with the zest of the half lemon, then whisk just enough to get rid of any lumps, without overmixing.
4. Stir in the yoghurt, then pour in the cooled honey butter in a thin stream while whisking, until you have a smooth, glossy batter, slightly thicker than crêpe batter.
5. Cover with cling film pressed onto the surface and refrigerate for at least 1 h (up to 24 h). This is the secret of the hump: very cold batter going into a very hot oven puffs up suddenly in the centre.
6. Preheat the oven to 210 °C (conventional, not fan) for 15 min. Brush the moulds of the tin with the softened butter, dust with flour, then turn the tin upside down and tap to remove the excess flour.
7. Fill each mould three-quarters full with 1 heaped tbsp of well-chilled batter, without spreading it: it will even out by itself as it bakes. Put the rest of the batter straight back in the fridge. The batter makes about 24 madeleines.
8. Bake for 9 to 10 min, until the hump is well formed and the edges are golden. Turn out immediately by tapping the tin on the worktop and leave to cool on the wire rack. Let the tin cool for 5 min, butter and flour it again, and bake the rest of the batter.