Earl Grey Madelines

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For this month’s Secret Recipe Club I spent a long time perusing Susan’s Australia-based blog, My Whole Food Family, bookmarking recipes such as Cappuccino Brownie Bites,  Palmiers, Pear Tea Cake,  Christmas Cake, and Caramel Cheesecake. I had my heart set on re-creating this daring Bûche de Nöel and even bought a silicone mold for it, but time got away from me.

But then I remembered that over a year ago I had purchased a madeline pan from World Market and still had not used it. Additionally, I had all of the ingredients for these Earl Grey Tea Madeleines on hand, including a brand new tin of Cream of Earl Grey.

I took a batch of these over to our veterinarian as a thank you for all of their help during Leopold’s last days.

These madeline cake-cookies were the perfect treat for tea-time. The fruit zest is bright and the madeline texture is springy without being greasy. The tea flavor was lost on me, but it might have been the tea I used (even though I added more than the recipe called for) or the fact that my lemon zest was extra “zesty”. The original recipe calls for the zest of half a lemon, but the recipe printed in Bon Appétit lists only a packed half teaspoon, which I would recommend to have more balanced flavors.

If you are planning to make these, remember to allow the batter to chill!
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Cherry Sakura Scones

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For this month’s scheduled Secret Recipe Club reveal, I will be on vacation with my family in Las Vegas so I started planning my Fried Ice and Donut Holes pick super early. Melissa, a teacher like my sister, has an extensive list of recipes going back to 2009. I had been wanting to make some cherry scones for a while, so my mind was made up when I saw her Cherry Scones recipe.

Mine ended up being a bit of a scone/muffin hybrid since I baked them in smaller tins. The batter looked a bit wet to me (due to using frozen cherries instead of fresh, which were not in season yet) so I added some extra flour.

When warmed up, they tasted great, with a strong vanilla flavor from the yogurt used in the batter. When they were eaten at room temperature they were a bit gummy on top and dense on the bottom due to my weird hybrid muffin-baking. I topped them with some preserved cherry blossoms which gave a nice salty pop.

I made these at the beginning of the month, just in time for #StarWarsDay. I immediately thought of my Dad, who loves cherries and Star Wars, so I used some Star Wars muffin liners for half the batch.

Apparently it’s tradition for me to make cherry desserts around this time, since I made a cherry cheesecake as well!
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