Around My French Table (78 page)

When you're ready to bake, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with a silicone baking mat or parchment paper.

Choose a cookie cutter—I use a scalloped cutter that's 1¼ inches in diameter—and remove 1 circle of dough from the refrigerator. Peel off the top piece of wax paper or plastic and cut out as many cookies as you can from the dough, carefully lifting the cutouts onto the lined baking sheet. Collect the scraps and set them aside to combine with the scraps from the second piece of dough.

Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are lightly golden and just slightly brown around the edges. Allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for a couple of minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack to cool.

Repeat with the second round of dough, making certain the baking sheet is cool before you put the cutouts on it. To use the scraps, press them together, roll them into a circle, and chill before cutting and baking.

MAKES ABOUT 70 COOKIES

SERVING
The cookies are just right with coffee, made for espresso and tea, and really good nibbled as a snack.

STORING
The dough can be wrapped airtight and kept in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 2 months. Kept in an airtight container, the cookies will be fine for a week or more.

BONNE IDÉE
If you roll the dough thinner (and bake the cookies for a shorter time), the speculoos will make great sandwich cookies. Try them with Nutella, dulce de leche, or bittersweet ganache (
[>]
). Or bring some raspberry or apricot jam to a boil with a tiny splash of water (you can do this in a microwave oven), and when the jam cools and thickens a bit, use it as a filling.

T
HIS IS NOT YOUR TYPICAL MADELEINE,
nor Proust's either. Although it's based on the classic (for that recipe, turn to Bonne Idée), it's my own invention, created to be served over the holidays, when spices like ginger, cinnamon, and cloves are most appreciated in both France and America. Like traditional madeleines, these require a light hand when folding the flour and butter into the egg and spice mixture. And the batter can be prepared ahead, even spooned into the molds, and baked
à la minute,
so that you can serve the little cakes warm. While I don't usually recommend serving a cake until it's thoroughly cooled, madeleines are the exception: for reasons inexplicable, ever-so-slightly warm is the perfect temperature for madeleines, particularly if they are small.

Although most often considered a cookie, a madeleine is more rightly a cake, since it's made from a batter very much like the one used for a génoise, which explains its lovely, fine-grained crumb. It is always made in a shell-shaped pan, now called a madeleine pan; the scallop shape was once associated with medieval religious pilgrims. And, in addition to having taste and literary celebrity on its side, it's got history too: the cookie was given its name about 250 years ago by Stanislas Leszczynski, king of Poland, who enjoyed the cakes, made by Madeleine, a home baker in the village of Commercy, when he was in France.

BE PREPARED:
You'll need to chill the batter for at least 3 hours.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, spices, salt, and pepper.

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl, rub the sugar and orange zest together with your fingertips until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Fit the stand mixer with the whisk attachment or use a hand mixer or a whisk. Add the eggs to the bowl and beat until the mixture is light colored, fluffy, and thickened, about 2 minutes. Beat in the honey, then the vanilla. Switch to a rubber spatula and very gently fold in the dry ingredients, followed by the melted butter.

You can use the batter now, but it's better if you give it a little rest. Or, for real convenience, you can spoon the batter into buttered-and-floured madeleine molds (see below for instructions on prepping the pans), cover, and chill, then bake the cookies directly from the fridge. In either case, press a piece of plastic wrap against the surface of the batter and refrigerate it for at least 3 hours, or overnight.

When you're ready to bake, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter 12 regular madeleine molds (or 36 mini molds), dust them with flour, and tap out the excess. (If you have a nonstick madeleine mold, butter and flour it or give it a light coating of vegetable cooking spray. If your pan is silicone, you can leave it as is or, just to be sure, give it a light butter-and-flour coating.) Place the pan(s) on a baking sheet and spoon the batter into the molds, filling each one to the top.

Bake large madeleines for 11 to 13 minutes, minis for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they are golden and the tops spring back when prodded gently. Remove the pan(s) from the oven and release the madeleines from the molds by rapping the edge of the pan against the counter. Gently pry any recalcitrant madeleines from the pan using your fingers or a butter knife. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to just warm or room temperature.

Just before serving, dust with confectioners' sugar.

MAKES 12 LARGE MADELEINES OR MORE THAN 36 MINI MADELEINES

SERVING
Like traditional madeleines, these are good with tea, but because of the spices, they're also very good with espresso. And, as unorthodox as the combination may be, they pair well with single-malt whisky or Armagnac.

STORING
Although the batter can be made up to a day ahead, madeleines are really best served just warm or at room temperature the day they are made. Leftovers should be kept in a closely covered container. If you've had them long enough for them to have gone stale, dunk them in whatever you're drinking.

BONNE IDÉE
Classic Madeleines.
These are the madeleines you find in just about every pastry shop throughout France. To make 12 large or 36 mini madeleines, whisk together ⅔ cup all-purpose flour, ¾ teaspoon baking powder, and a pinch of salt. Put ½ cup sugar and the finely grated zest of 1 lemon in the bowl of a stand mixer or a large bowl and use your fingers to rub them together until the sugar is moist and fragrant. Add 2 large eggs to the bowl and beat, using the whisk attachment or a hand mixer or whisk, for 2 minutes, or until the batter is light colored, fluffy, and thick. Beat in 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract, then, using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients followed by 6 tablespoons (¾ stick) melted and cooled unsalted butter. From here, follow the directions for Honey-Spiced Madeleines.

I
F CRUNCHY IS YOUR FAVORITE TEXTURE,
then this may become your favorite cookie. Named for its texture (
croquant
means crunchy), the cookie is so crisp that there's no way to eat it silently—each bite comes with its own culinary equivalent of a brass band. The cookies are simplicity itself, yet I can never seem to get enough of them. They are made with (unwhipped) egg whites, a fair amount of sugar (they're very sweet), a small amount of flour, and lots of big pieces of nuts. Although they sound as if they might be meringues, they're not. They're light and airy, less fragile than they look, and, because the nuts are kept large, remarkably flavorful.

Croquants are a popular cookie in France. They can be bought in cellophane bags at supermarkets and specialty shops, and they're served with ice cream at Paris's most famous
glacier,
Berthillon. One day, when I was baking these cookies at home, it struck me why Berthillon makes them a specialty: with all the egg yolks they use to churn ice cream, they had to find something wonderful to do with all the whites.
Voilà! Les croquants!

You can use just about any nut you like, as long as you keep the pieces hefty. I like them the size of chocolate chips. Unskinned hazelnuts and almonds, singly or in combination, are the most popular. But one day, when I was without either of these nuts, I used salted cashews, and they became our house favorite.

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper. (You can use nonstick foil or silicone baking mats, but the silicone doesn't work as well as parchment here.)

Put the nuts and sugar in a medium bowl and, using a rubber spatula, stir to mix. Add the egg whites and stir so that the nuts are evenly coated. Add the flour and stir to blend. You'll have a thick mix, not quite batter, not quite dough, and not quite what you'd expect for a cookie, but that's fine.

Measure out 1 teaspoon dough for each cookie and put the little mounds on the lined baking sheet, making sure to leave about 2 inches between them. Pat each mound of dough gently just to round it.

Bake the cookies for 8 minutes, rotating the sheet at the midway mark, or until they are puffed, crackled, and nicely browned. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies stand for about 10 minutes, or until you can easily peel them away from the parchment. Allow the cookies to cool to room temperature on the cooling rack; make sure they're in a dry place—as with meringues, humidity will quickly turn these chewy.

Repeat with the remaining dough, baking each batch on a cool baking sheet.

MAKES ABOUT 34 COOKIES

SERVING
These are fabulous with ice cream, but they're also just right with coffee, particularly strong dark espresso.

STORING
The cookies will keep for a week or so in a covered container if you can manage to keep them cool and dry, especially dry. Don't put them in a plastic bag, and don't wrap them in plastic wrap, or they'll go crunchless.

C
REPES ARE A HIGH/LOW SWEET.
They can be the finish of a luxe meal or a snack you pick up at an outdoor stand and eat on the run. Perhaps the most famous crepe dish is crepes Suzette, a dish that's attributed to a mistake. In 1895, Henri Charpentier, who would later become a great chef, was a young waiter in Monte Carlo charged with serving crepes to the Prince of Wales, who would later become the King of England. In that age of tableside service, Charpentier had a pan of liqueurs at the ready to make a sauce for the guests, when the alcohol went up in flames. The waiter may have been young, but he was resourceful—he quickly slid the crepes into the pan of boiling liqueur, swirled them around, and, with extraordinary élan, presented them as Crepes Princesse, honoring Suzanne, Edward's daughter, who was at the table. Later the name was changed to Suzette, ostensibly at the prince's request.

Not surprisingly, the paper-thin pancakes get simpler treatment on Paris streets, where crepe stands are abundant. Often you'll see a stand about the size of a telephone booth attached to a café or on a street corner, and when you go to markets, you'll find mobile crepe and waffle trucks, usually with lines of eager snackers in front of them. The most popular toppings for snack crepes are sugar and butter (put a pat of butter on a hot crepe, spread it as it melts, and sprinkle with sugar), jam or marmalade, Grand Marnier (a splash creates a crepes Suzette moment), Nutella, or, for a splurge, Nutella topped with thin slices of banana. The crepes are made on large round griddles: the batter is smoothed over them with a long wooden spatula, and then, when both sides of the crepe are cooked and the topping has been added, the spatula is used to fold the crepe into quarters. You end up with a four-layer triangle of crepe that, wrapped in a piece of waxy paper, is not just delicious, but the best hand warmer on a winter's day.