Something sweet. Not much. Just a little full stop to mark the end of my meal, that is all I ask. A madeleine is enough: small, light and soft. A tiny cake in the shape of a scallop shell scented with lemon or, rather like the one I made this week, flavoured with passionfruit and glazed with an icing so thin you could see through it.
A scoop of ice cream would do – pale, cool and not too sweet, perhaps with a biscuit on the side. I often find frozen yogurt works best in an ice with sweet fruits, such as aripe mango or banana, tempering the fruit’s sugary edge. Or, of course, Icould have a biscuit, translucent with crisp caramel and toasted nuts that shatters like ice on a pond. A sweet nothing.
Passion fruit madeleines
The soaking of the little cakes with syrup, as you might a lemon drizzle cake, is unusual, and makes them very fragile. You’ll need a madeleine tray, available from cookware shops, but you could also use very small, shallow muffin tins.
Makes 12 madeleines
butter 100g
caster sugar 100g
lemon grated zest of 1
eggs 2
self-raising flour 50g
almonds 45g, ground
for the syrup:
caster sugar 50g
water 125ml
passion fruit 8, plump but wrinkled
lemon juice of half
for the icing:
icing sugar 125g
passion fruit syrup (see above) 60ml
Put the butter, cut into small pieces, into the bowl of a food mixer, add the caster sugar and beat until light and creamy. Allow a good 8-10 minutes at a moderate speed.
Set the oven at 220C/gas mark 8. If your madeleine tins aren’t nonstick, brush them lightly with butter and dust with flour. (Curiously, I find buttering nonstick moulds tends to make the cakes stick. So much for belt and braces.)
Fold in the grated lemon zest, then add the eggs, lightly beaten, a little at a time. Should the mixture show any sign of curdling, and it probably will, fold in a spoonful of flour. Gently fold in the flour and ground almonds then divide equally between the tins and bake for 8 minutes. There is no need to try to smooth the mixture level in the tins – it does that for us in the oven.
Make the syrup. Put the sugar and water into a saucepan and bring to the boil. Stir gently and occasionally, until the sugar has dissolved, then remove from the heat. Take the madeleines from the oven, let them rest for a minute or two, then carefully run a palette knife around the edges of the tins and lift them out on to a cooling rack.
Cut the passion fruit in half and squeeze their juice and seeds into a small sieve balanced over a mixing bowl or jug. Stir the seeds firmly with a spoon, pushing as much of the pulp as you can though the sieve. Discard the seeds once there is no more pulp attached to them. Stir the passion fruit and lemon juices into the sugar syrup.
With the madeleines on a cooling rack perched over a tray, spoon the passion fruit syrup over the cakes, soaking them slowly and thoroughly. Keep back about 60ml of the syrup.
To make the icing, sift the icing sugar into a bowl to remove any lumps, then stir in the lemon juice and as much of the 60ml of passion fruit syrup as you need to make a thin icing. Spoon the icing over the cakes. It should just coat them, but be thin enough to see the characteristic ridges of the madeleine through. Leave to set then carefully transfer to a serving plate.
Banana and cardamom frozen yogurt
Serves 4
for the syrup:
caster sugar 100g
water 150ml
for the ice:
cardamom 10 pods, crushed
yogurt 450g, full-fat
bananas 400g (peeled weight)
lemon juice of half
Put the sugar in a saucepan, pour in the water then bring to the boil. Once the sugar has dissolved, remove from the heat. Chill the syrup, either by letting it cool then refrigerating it, or you could speed up the process by immersing the saucepan in a sink of cold water and stirring the syrup until cool. It should be chilled before you start the ice-cream machine.
Crack open the cardamom pods and extract the black seeds. Crush the seeds to a coarse powder and add to the yogurt. Process the bananas to athick purée, add the lemon juice, then stir in the chilled sugar syrup.
Pour the mixture into an ice-cream machine and churn according to the instructions. Transfer to a freezer box and place in the deep freeze. You can also make this without a machine, though the texture will be less creamy.
Rose and almond brittle
For best results, when making caramel it is essential not to stir the sugar and water mixture too much.
sugar 50g
water 240ml
almonds 40g, flaked
crystallised rose petals 1 tbsp
Put the sugar in a shallow, nonstick pan over a moderate heat then add the water. Bring to the boil and leave to bubble, watching constantly, until the caramel turns a pale honey colour. Add the flaked almonds and shake the pan or gently stir to mix.
Chop the crystallised rose petals, add them to the pan, mix in, then tip in a shallow layer on to a lightly oiled baking sheet and leave to cool and harden. Snap the brittle into pieces and serve with the frozen yogurt.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk. Follow Nigel on Twitter @NigelSlater
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