B E B E R E

My new department head recently asked my boss why I hated him so much. I honestly don't understand why, but for the sake of building bridges, I baked something for him last week:

Madeleines

3/4 c butter
2 eggs
1 c sugar
1 c cake flour (sifted)
1 T rum
t t vanilla or 1 t grated lemon peel

Melt and cool butter. Heat eggs and sugar in a double boiler until lukewarm, stirring constantly. remove from heat, and beat until thick, but light and creamy. When mixture is cool, sift flour in gradually. Add the melted butter and the flavorings. Bake in greased madeleine tins/muffin tins for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.

Yield - approx 25-30.

This recipe is an adaptation of the Joy of Cooking one which is dead wrong on a number of counts. I further modified it because:

a.) My local grocery store's kind of like that Soviet-era Moscow store called "Gum" (meaning, on the night I went looking for vanilla and fresh lemons, the one bottle of vanilla they had was more expensive than a 30 year old port and there were no fresh lemons. Oh, and the chicken rotisserie machine had started a grease fire, so the place was filled with smoke. I thought it best to just leave.)

b.) I'm cheap. I ended up substituting a couple spoons ful of Captain Morgan (got a nip of it at the local package store - $1.50 as opposed to six dollars for the vanilla.) and the rind of a blood orange I had lying around for the five dollar jarred lemon rind they had at Gum...sorry, I meant Shaws. The results were amazing.

As it turned out, my boss's boss ended up leaving early to do ostensibly corporate stuff on a Friday afternoon, so I had a pretty rich lunch and shared the rest with my cube mates. Enjoy.

***

Bonjour aux amateurs de la haute cuisine du Carnaval! Voici une petite lecture de base à propos de ces gâteaux si bien connus. Amusez-vous bien avec si vous avez l'inclination...