CHOCOLATE ORANGE GRAND MARNIER MADELEINES

ISN'T THIS A LOVELY DAY TO BE COZY AND WARM

The turn in the weather
Will keep us together
So I can honestly say
That as far as I'm concerned,
It's a lovely day and everything's OK.
- Irving Berlin

Whoosh! The wintry cold weather sweeps in, a Siberian caress, an Arctic clutch, a frosty kiss across my skin sending shivers racing through my body. Sun, glorious sun arises bright and early showing off the shimmering glaze of ice atop the building facing our own. Weeks of dim, gray misery melt away and the stunning light and the sharp, crisp cold invigorate, energize and excite this Florida girl in love with winter.

Scurrying back home from the market yesterday morning in positively glacial temperatures, we came to the conclusion that the best place to thoroughly enjoy this marvelous weather was indoors, huddled together, cooking, baking, sipping steamy mugs of coffee and working. Our old, rambling apartment is quite as chilly inside as out and tapping on a keyboard, no gloves feasible, is only a few notches warmer which of course means plenty of meet-ups in the coziness of the kitchen. The last of the Galette des Rois was joyously snatched up and eaten standing, leaning over the platter, divided between my happy menfolk, and it would soon be time to bake again. Our market basket yielded a bounty of goodness, a pristine white cauliflower cupped in curls of gentle, soft green meant to be transformed into an old-fashioned gratin, the snowy flowerets bathed in creamy béchamel and dusted with cheese; peppery endive, so innocent in their pale beauty, so cool and calm, all innocence harboring their devilish bite, to be wrapped in thick, rosy slices of herb-flecked ham and blanketed in yet more cheesy béchamel – oooh do you see the decadence this cold weather is luring us into? Thick, pale, glistening veal chops the color of pink champagne, paired with a tumble of plump milky champignons still heady with the dark, moist earth clinging to their stumps; and apples, red and green, the colors of Christmas, crisp and sweet-tart, the perfect apples for serving silky smooth, drenched in butter, meltingly sautéed, atop those chops à la normande.


And oranges. But more about that in a bit.

Yes, we tripped home with a basket overflowing, a cornucopia of delicious, wintry nourishment. White on white, the theme of this effervescent month of January. And lucky am I that husband is content and at home in the kitchen, maybe even more so than I, and happy he is to stand over the stove and twiddle and play and concoct one rich, luxurious, delicious, comforting dish after another. As we say chez nous, it keeps him off the streets… Which leaves me free to bake.

So many bewail the icy month of January, the month after the glory, the upheaval, the bustle and joy of the December holidays. January is the calm after the storm, and don’t we feel just a bit let down? We finally slow down, catch our breath and glance up and notice the now bare trees, trees naked and brown once the gaudy, flashy, gaily-colored lights and shiny baubles have been taken down and returned to their secret hideaways to slumber away the rest of the year. We see the leaden skies and feel the chill and damp that seeps down to our very bones. January is the month we tighten our belt, count the calories, undo the damage done during the festivities and get back to work. Yawn….nothing ever seems to happen in this long, dreary, cold month of January. We tend towards lethargy; listless and sluggish, we bundle up in layer upon layer to battle the drop in temperature and drag ourselves from task to task, no pleasure in the thought of the long month of January lying ahead of us until February arrives and the anticipation of St. Valentine’s Day begins to brighten our outlook. Yes, the grumbling and grousing, the kvetching and complaining about the month of January rings loud and clear across the blogosphere.


Well, I beg to differ. I love the month of January. We coast from Hannukah and Christmas filled with food and presents through the Champagne celebrations of the New Year all the way through this glorious month straight towards my birthday! I love the nearly unbearable cold and the Florida girl in me begs and prays for snow each and every year. The temperature drops, the sky takes on that mysterious misty-gray hue that presages the coming of snowy days and nights and husband glides through the month gleefully dropping hints, jokingly teasing me about the arrival of the big day and using it to get me to do his bidding. Yes, after the money spent on holiday gifts, there is precious little left for a fancy birthday do, but there is always something special, something to please.

The Ice Queen may reign with her frozen heart, cruel and harsh, yet there is something so regal about this frosty, shivery month cloaked in a mist of silver and mystery. I refuse to jump on the bandwagon of bad-mouthing the first month of the year. The cold actually adds vibrancy to our activity and we push forward with our work and our plans. Clem is designing his first house, Simon is happily ensconced in his Milanese life, the art, the opera, the office, JP pulls together the plans for a brilliant project idea, and I, as we all know by now, write and write and write. You see, unlike the rest of Europe, we neither ski nor snowboard; we don’t skate or dogsled; we have never once been ice fishing and although once a very long time ago we dreamed of taking the kids and heading north for a week in Lapland and yet another time we thought of going all Hurtigruten and taking a romantic winter cruise along the coast of Norway, but we did neither. Instead we hunker down and prepare for the long, hard slog through January, February and even March from our home in Nantes; we watch poor Marty grow despairingly bald as he does every winter; we continue to and make plans and we simply enjoy each other’s company.

A change in the weather is sufficient to recreate the world and ourselves.
- Robert Frost

And, ah, the oranges. Now where do they fit in? As December and January roll around, as winter settles in I begin to crave citrus. Maybe it is the blast of vitamin C, maybe it is the refreshing juice and the bite of a tart clementine or a satisfyingly bitter tang of a grapefruit that helps me battle the cold, but I actually think it is nostalgia. Growing up a stone’s throw from the Indian River, citrus capital of the world (as far as I am concerned), our every winter, whether chilly or mild, was filled with citrus: large brown paper bags carefully saved from trips to the supermarket were filled with quantities of grapefruit white and pink, tangerines and navals and eaten like popcorn. Winter just wasn’t winter without our citrus fruit collected straight from the orchards just over the bridge. So now, the arrival of winter comes hand-in-hand with a craving, a need for juicy oranges, tart grapefruits and bags upon bags of clementines.


And for some odd reason, I have been pairing orange and chocolate, that ideal marriage, over and over again and we cannot get enough: from Nigella’s Chocolate Orange Cake to dense, gooey Orange and Chocolate Brownies, from a swirl of bitter orange marmalade in heavenly bittersweet chocolate ganache to fill my chocolate macarons to a glorious Grand Marnier Bundt drenched under a glaze of Chocolate Ganache, orange and chocolate have become a signature pairing, a duet creating beautiful music. And when my darling friend Lora the Cake Duchess declared the month of January #citruslove month, well, I really couldn’t resist, now could I? And Madeleines it was! I made one bowl of Orange Grand Marnier Madeleine batter and one of Chocolate Grand Marnier batter and combined the two to create these fabulous marbled Madeleines: light and delicate while being incredibly moist, tender and flavorful. What a way to face the month of January.


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And my latest article on Huffington Post Food is up.... Eating and the Law in France: What's in the News.

CHOCOLATE ORANGE GRAND MARNIER MARBLED MADELEINES
Adapted from recipes in Madeleines et Financiers by Thomas Feller

Combined, make 24 x 3” large Madeleines + 40 x 1 ½” mini Madeleines.


ORANGE GRAND MARNIER MADELEINES
Makes 12 large + 20 mini or 30 mini Madeleines

2 large eggs
10 Tbs (140 g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature + more for the molds
½ cup + 2 Tbs + 2 tsps (140 g) granulated sugar
½ an orange, preferably untreated or organic
2 Tbs Grand Marnier
a pinch of salt
scant ¾ cup (100 g) flour

Clean and dry the half an orange; finely grate the zest and squeeze the juice. Separate the eggs, placing the whites with a few grains of salt in a very clean bowl, preferably plastic or metal. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl and using an electric mixer, beat the softened butter with the sugar until well blended and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, the orange zest and juice, the Grand Marnier and a pinch of salt until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour and beat in just until combined and smooth.

Using very clean beaters, whip the whites until firm (but not stiff) peaks hold when the beaters are lifted. Fold the whipped whites into the Madeleine batter until completely blended in and no more white is visible. The batter should be thick and completely smooth.

Set aside.

CHOCOLATE GRAND MARNIER MADELEINES
Makes 12 large + 20 mini or 30 mini madeleines

2 large eggs
10 Tbs (140 g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature + more for the molds
½ cup + 2 Tbs + 2 tsps (140 g) granulated sugar
½ tsp vanilla
2 Tbs Grand Marnier *
scant ¾ cup (100 g) flour
1 Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder
a pinch of salt

* if making the chocolate Madeleines on their own, the Grand Marnier can be replaced with 2 or 3 tablespoons prepared coffee or espresso or 2 tablespoons of another liqueur such as Amaretto, Limoncello or Kahlua.

Separate the eggs, placing the whites with a few grains of salt in a very clean bowl, preferably plastic or metal. Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl and using an electric mixer, beat the softened butter with the sugar until well blended and fluffy. Beat in the egg yolks, the vanilla, the Grand Marnier and a pinch of salt until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the flour and the cocoa powder and beat in just until combined and smooth.

Using very clean beaters, whip the whites until firm (but not stiff) peaks hold when the beaters are lifted. Fold the whipped whites into the Madeleine batter until completely blended in and no more white is visible. The batter should be thick and completely smooth.

Prepare the Madeleines:

Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C). Lightly butter the indentations in your Madeleine molds/tins.

Prepare the two batters. Spoon equal parts batter – or one or the other – into the indentations not coming up higher than the edges of the indentations. You can marble the two batters by cutting a sharp knife through the two colors.

Place in the preheated oven and bake: about 10 minutes for the mini Madeleines and 15 or 20 for the large Madeleines. Remove the tins from the oven when the center of each Madeleine is set and puffed (slightly – with this recipe don’t expect huge, classic humps in the center) and the edges are golden. Allow the Madeleines to cool for a minute or two in the tins on cooling racks before popping them out, one by one, using the point of a sharp knife and a gentle hand.

Repeat with cooled tins and the rest of the batter.