Make Tea-Time Special With These

Khapli Wheat Lemon Madeleines

Khapli wheat lemon madeleines recipe is a wholesome take on a tea cake with roots in the Lorraine region of north-eastern France, where the small, shell-shaped sponge cake is said to have originated in the town of Commercy in the 18th century, linked to the court of Stanisław Leszczyński, the exiled Polish king who ruled Lorraine as its duke. The cake later found its way into literature through Marcel Proust, whose description of a madeleine dipped in tea became one of the most-cited passages in French literature. Since madeleines are bite-sized, it is easier to use khapli atta in them than standard all-purpose flour. Khapli wheat is a little different even among the whole wheat flours, with a fragile gluten with a lower concentration than any other kind of flour, so making that little gluten work for baking can be tricky but not impossible. The payoff here, after all, is the nutrient density of this flour. But madeleines derive their volume from eggs, and not exactly the flour, so this works in favour of the flour. The madeleine batter is thick and pale, made by whisking eggs, sugar, and lemon zest. It is folded into the dry ingredients, then the melted butter goes in, followed by a chilling period. This rest is what allows the batter to firm up enough to produce the small domed ‘hump’ on the back of each madeleine once it hits the hot pan. With khapli atta, this hump might not be as dramatic as it would be with refined flour, so the chilling time should not be shortened, and if anything, a full 30 minutes in the refrigerator matters more here than in the original recipe.