Honey and Vanilla Madeleines Recipe

A madeleines recipe is lovely for Mother’s Day, wedding showers, tea parties, baby showers, and birthdays too. These cake-like cookies are baked in a Madeleine tray. These honey and vanilla madeleines are light and fluffy.

A madeleines recipe for Honey and Vanilla Madeleines is a perfect choice to have with a cup of tea. Light and fluffy, they are a mix between a cookie and a cake. Honey and vanilla madeleines make any occasion a special one.

The perfect treat to enjoy with tea

If your afternoon (or morning) snack has coffee as the star rather than tea, you’ll find some sweets in our recipe list that are right up your alley. This group is not fussy and neither are these madeleines: they fit in with coffee, tea, and milk or any variation thereof.

The madeleine pan

You will need the traditional madeleine baking pan to create the easily recognized shape of the madeleines.

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British Tea Time Recipes

Since we are talking about foods for teatime I had to go my ever-reliable favorite website for British baking: BBC Good Food. Yes, madeleines recipes may have originated in France but the British have perfected tea to an art form.

Other tea time dessert ideas include jam thumbprint cookies and any cake or cookie topped with this lemon curd made in the Vitamix.

What is a madeleine?

A madeleine is a cross between a cookie and a cake. It’s a type of French butter cake that is a sponge cake. Each individual sponge cake is baked in its on mould in a madeleine pan which is a little like a muffin pan. 

This vanilla madeleine recipe takes the madeleine’s standard sponge cake and accents it with honey and vanilla. I doubled the amounts of both honey and vanilla so that their delicate flavors didn’t get lost in the finished product. You’ll see that the honey and vanilla madeleines brown to a golden color very nicely.

The side you see in the photos is actually the underside (the part touching the pan when baking). The tops are still a lighter shade of yellow. They are soft and bounce back to the touch. I like the contrast of the two sides and the baking pan moulds give these little sponge cakes a particular elegance that makes them perfect for teatime.

You’ll find the original recipe  on BBC Good Food.

Do madeleines need icing?

Madeleines are beautifully little cakes to serve just as they are without any icing or frosting. You may add a dusting of confectioners sugar for a touch of added sweetness and decoration. Because these delicate treats are a cross between cookies and cake, they don’t fall into either category. 

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It’s Tea Time!

Cookies in the afternoon at “teatime” are a long held tradition, whether served with tea, coffee or even milk for an after school snack. No matter what you serve with your cookies, we’ve got a great list for you to choose from!

Baking Tools used in this Madeleines Recipe

You really can’t make authentic madeleines without the traditional madeleine pan. This pan is like a muffin pan in that it offers a space (or indentation) for each cake. The madeleine tray gives a rippled bottom finish to each cake and the tops will be slightly domed and beautifully browned.

Here is a Madeleine Pan that is sold on Amazon. 

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