Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Pastry School- Madelines and Financiers

Madelines are these nice little cookie/cakes that are usually in the shape of a shell.  My girls love them.  I see them at Starbucks and in the grocery store in little packages.  They cost a fortune, and really aren't that good.  If you have one that's made fresh, however, they are much better.  I think the shelf life for a Madeline is maybe 24 hours.  The photo above shows one of my groupmates piping dough into a Madeline mold.
Using a knife to release some of the air bubbles.
 Madelines out of the oven.
This is a photo of our instructor piping Financier batter into molds.  Financiers are little gold cakes, like Madelines, but they are made with brown butter.  They are traditionally piped into molds to make them look like gold bars.  I liked the Financiers better than the Madelines.  The girls did not.
Madeline and Financier molds.  The instructor shows how to hold a piping bag so that the bag is wrapped around your hand, and the tail end doesn't drop into your work.
My piped Financiers- in the first row.
Finished Financiers with almonds, (there's almond meal in the recipe), and blackberries.

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