For my birthday, a good friend of mine gave me a book on Japanese patisserie by James Campbell. It’s a stunning book with beautiful photographs of high-end patisserie, a lot of which is way beyond my culinary ability. However, these madeleines caught my eye; very easy to make, exotic flavours and I already had matcha powder and pink peppercorns in the cupboard. All I had to do was to wait for an excuse to make them.

Two things happened in the same week. First, a colleague told me it was her birthday and then another colleague gave me a gift of an edible gold spray, goldas in real gold! So out came the madeleine recipe. It was really very straight forward. I used the spray to add a bit of birthday sparkle to the tops of the madeleines. Admittedly, madeleines are probably not the ideal vehicle for edible gold spray as the contrast of the colour was not strong enough. However, the birthday girl was delighted with her luxurious, exotic madeleines.

Ingredients

150g unsalted butter

50g ground almonds

¾ tablespoon matcha powder

50g plain flour

150g egg whites (about 4 large eggs)

½ teaspoon pink peppercorns, ground

12 cherries, halved with the stones removed

Directions

• First make a buerre noisette (browned butter). Put the diced butter in a saucepan and set over a medium-high heat for around 5-7 minutes until melted and boiling. The fat at the bottom of the pan should go a nutty-brown colour, but be careful this does not darken too much and burn. Transfer the browned butter immediately to a heatproof dish and set aside to cool until just warm.
• In a separate bowl, sift together the ground almonds, matcha powder and flour.
• In another bowl, whisk together the egg whites with the sugar until frothy.
• Carefully fold the dry ingredients, the buerre noisette and ground pink peppercorns into the sugar and egg mixture until fully incorporated and no lumps remain. Transfer the mixture to the fridge to chill for at least an hour. You can also put the madeleine tins, greased with butter and dusted with flour into the freezer.
• Preheat the oven to 180C/ Gas 4.
• Put the chilled madeleine mixture into a piping bag and pipe in enough to almost fill the prepared tin. Alternatively, you can spoon the mixture in.