First things first: the Via Corona kitchen (and Misanthropic Hostess world headquarters) is 98% complete.  The crew “finished” it on December 23rd.  It was the Christmas miracle that was meant to be a Labor Day deliverable.  I’ll do a fully sourced kitchen reveal later this month.

This kitchen was designed to be ridden hard and put away wet so I got right down to business.  In the first 36 hours after we’d moved everything in,  I made 5 kinds of cookies, 2 kinds of bars, a layer cake, cinnamon buns and a batch of madeleines. I’d also fired-up the slow cooker, made and froze half a dozen base recipes (shredded chicken for tacos, chile verde for tacos, soy honey turkey for Asian tacos, turkey bolgonese for the kind of tacos you eat over spagetti…we eat a lot of tacos).  Oh, and Thanksgiving dinner…on Christmas…because we missed it on Thanksgiving.

If you give a girl double ovens and five burners there’s to limit to what she can do.

I am at a loss to describe what a pleasure it is to have an organized, fully applianced and working kitchen.  While I’m of the “have oven, will bake” sentiment (way back when I used to make pie dough in a blender) and the Hermosa Beach rental had its charm, it’s good to be back.

The first thing I made was a batch of chocolate chip cookies for Tom.  I figured I’d if I distracted him with fairways and greens, he wouldn’t notice that I’d immediately and enthusiastically left the course starting with these blue cheese and honey madeleines.

They are from Dorie Greenspan’s new book, Dorie’s Cookies and I was so excited to be reunited with my specialty baking pans after nearly a year and a half, that these were an easy first bake.

This recipe walks the line between sweet and savory, rich little cakes with the zing of tart cheese and depth of honey.

Madeleines come with the added benefit of getting to bang the pan to release the little jewels.  I find this practice very satisfying.

While generally best if eaten in the first 24 hours after being made, they do freeze well.  We enjoyed these with some dry California sparkling wine on New Year’s eve as a late night snack.

Honey and blue cheese madeleines

from Dorie’s Cookies, Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients

• 3/4 C (102 g) all purpose flour
• 3/4 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt (I use kosher)
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper (or more to taste if you are a pepper-fiend like me)
• 2 large eggs at room temp
• 2 TBS sugar
• 6 TBS (3oz,, 85 g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 2 oz (57 g) bleu cheese crumbled or cut into bits

Directions

1. Coat the madeleine molds with softened butter (I like to use the inside of the butter wrapper), dust with flour, tap-out excess (or use baker’s spray).
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and pepper.
3. In a medium bowl, energetically whisk eggs with the sugar and honey until well blended.
4. Add flour all at once and gently fold-in with spatula.
5. Fold-in the butter in three to four batches.
6. Fold-in the cheese.
7. Divide batter evenly among the molds.  The batter won’t be smooth and might not cover the mold–don’t worry, it’ll even-out during cooking.
8. Freeze for at least an hour.
9. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and center rack. Place a baking sheet on rack to pre-heat.
10. Place cold madeleine tin/mold on preheated baking sheet and bake for 11-13 minutes or until the cakes are golden brown (don’t undercook).
11. Remove pan from oven and if mold is metal, grab and end and tap it on the counter, the madeleines should pop right out.
12. Best if eaten the same day or frozen.  Warm briefly in 350 degree oven once thawed.