Chocolate sweetheart madeleines/blobs

These Chocolate Sweetheart Madeleines were easy to make in the sense that whizzing the mixture upon the stand mixer took very little time or effort. The devil, as they might say if they were bakers, is in the moulding. And decorating. 

I only had one single madeleine mould. Why just one, you ask? I think I wanted one years ago but they were expensive. And only available singly. And in non-non-stick (is that stick, then?). So, that being the case, I decided to make a couple of madeleines shapes and the rest in my mince pie tray. This worked quite well except that madeleines without the characteristic shell shape are really just cake blobs. Delicious but meaningless.

My other challenge with these was the chocolate glaze. Once again I'm reminded that effort equals results in decorating. It may have been the re-purposed leftover chocolate sauce from the swiss roll we made the other week. It may have been my slap-happy application of the glaze with the pastry brush. Or all of the above. The result was that I wasn't very happy with the way my madeleines looked at the end. And particularly when I saw a picture of Evil Cake Lady's beautiful looking biscuits. Not that I'm envious. Hmmph.

There was no piping of mixture and it seemed to sort itself out in the oven.

Rose specified the moulds should be half filled which was very handy and even though I just eye-balled it, they worked out well.

I'm not sure these were like traditional madeleines which I think are made with almond meal? (must google that) They did taste a lot like Rose's sour cream cake mixture which makes sense since it had sour cream in it. They were very moist, particularly with the glaze.

Not pretty, but pretty delicious. I ate a shameful number of these, one after another.

Next week (only four weeks to go I think) the Alpha Bakers are making something with pomegranate (must check).

Alpha Baker catch-up - Frangelico Pecan Butter Balls

The Alpha Bakers' bake through of Rose Levy Beranbaum's Baking Bible is coming to an end in a few short weeks. One of the things this has prompted me to do is to try and catch up on the weeks that I missed. I have several posts which have been sitting in my drafts for some time. The problem with that is that I can't really remember the baking process. I can generally remember what they tasted like though which says it all really.

My first catch-up post is on the Bourbon Pecan Butter Balls. I actually made this in the week they were scheduled but I just couldn't get the post written. You may have guessed from the title that I used Frangelico instead of bourbon. I didn't have any bourbon and I thought Frangelico might be interesting. I added a dash of brandy to give it a sharper alcoholic taste. That's right, I just splashed alcohol around on the principle that if a little bit is good, more is better. 

I'd like to try them with Bourbon because it's a flavour I'm not that familiar with. Maybe I'll give them a go this Christmas, because they're very like the rum balls that are traditional Christmas fare here (with a coating of chocolate sprinkles). 

Things that I do remember about these: (1) I had some leftover chocolate biscuit dough in the freezer (this is the actual definition of a miracle in my house); (2) I had some nuts in the fridge which were a bit old so I toasted them to freshen them up (note to self, do not attempt to cut corners or pretend to be a good housekeeper. Always buy fresh nuts); (3) I only cried a little bit when I had to pulverise my freshly made biscuits; (4) the mixture would have tasted better with better nuts; (5) my colleagues loved them.

My next catch-up should be on raisin-cinnamon swirl bread. Or something like that.