I went food shopping in a tired daze this week and came back to my apartment with limes instead of cucumbers. I recall standing in front of the meyer lemons and limes, thinking, “Aha! I really need to hydrate myself more. I’ll get some cucumber and have cucumber water like in fancy restaurants. I’ll just grab these limes here.”
The next day I pulled out a pitcher to make myself some cucumber water. All I saw in the fridge were limes. And I paused. Limes do not equal cucumbers. I guess that’s what you get for grocery shopping sleepily.
Happily, this story does not end with me sad and confused at my kitchen table drinking plain old water. It ends with me contentedly eating some untraditional madeleines (with a side of plain old water).
Limes are a perfect addition to my favorite easy cake-slash-cookie recipe. And when I glanced at my madeleine recipe and remembered it called for melted butter, I thought to myself (in a considerably more logical fashion than I had been thinking to myself in the grocery store), “Why not brown this butter instead of merely melting it and see what happens?”
What happens, friends, is good. It’s very good. It is so good that even my resident furry sous chefs tried to get in on the action.
These are just as delicious in tiny miniature madeleine form as they are in relatively giant normal-sized madeleine form. The lightness of the lime, not nearly as harsh a citrus flavor as lemons, my usual summer stand-by, give the sweetness of the madeleines a little punch. The browned butter is a quiet, subtle backdrop.
So in the end, I have 22 madeleines and no cucumber water. Which gets me thinking, I wonder what cucumber madeleines would be like? (Would that even be possible?) I’ll be sure to report the next time I go to the grocery store with limes on my shopping list and return with cucumbers. Continue reading