English Madeleines

Master the classic English Madeleine with this nostalgic, no-frills recipe. Learn how to bake buttery vanilla mini-cakes coated in jam and coconut. Perfect for tea-time!

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Updated to add on April 12, 2026:

English Madeleines are a British tea-time classic, distinct from their French cousins. These buttery vanilla sponge cakes are traditionally baked in dariole moulds (but you can bake in a cupcake tray too), brushed with melted fruit jam, and generously coated in desiccated coconut. This easy, pantry-friendly recipe comes from a 40-year-old Good Housekeeping cookbook and features professional tips for achieving perfect results every time. While I love the original text of the post since it talks about my childhood, I have updated this post with information about the tools and ingredients I use which might be helpful.

Choosing Your Shape: Dariole Moulds vs. Cupcake Trays

While these cakes are traditionally baked in dariole moulds to achieve that iconic tall, cylindrical shape, they are incredibly versatile. My mom always used a standard cupcake tray, which yields a slightly wider, shorter cake that is just as delicious. If you want to achieve the professional, vertical look seen in my video, you can find the exact moulds I use here.

The Jam

Raspberry jam is the classic choice for its tartness, providing a perfect contrast to the coconut. However, I’ve had wonderful results using strawberry or even mixed berry preserves. The key is to melt it down until it is smooth and easily brushable. For this recipe, I generally use this  fruit preserve which has the perfect consistency and seed-to-fruit ratio, plus its sweetened with fruit juices. The original instructions asks to sieve the jam- but I do not any more and use it as is. Unless your jam is too lumpy, I do not see this step as necessary.

Salted vs. Unsalted Butter

In professional baking, unsalted butter is usually the gold standard so you can control the seasoning. However, for a long time in India, quality unsalted butter was difficult to source, so I grew up using salted butter—and I honestly love the subtle savory depth it adds to the vanilla sponge. Feel free to use whichever you have in your fridge; if you use unsalted, just add a tiny pinch of fine salt to your dry ingredients.

The Flour: Making Your Own Self-Rising Blend

The original 1980s recipe calls for self-rising flour, which ensures that signature lift. If you only have all-purpose flour (Maida) in your pantry, you can easily make your own.

For every 1 cup (125g) of all-purpose flour, whisk in:

• • 1 teaspoon of baking powder

  • ¼ teaspoon of fine salt (omit if using salted butter)

The original March, 2014 post

When I posted the picture for these english madeleines on instagram I mentioned that my house smelled of my childhood. And it surely did. In fact when I was washing the cupcake pan, it still smelled of the memories from my younger days, even though the madeleines had been removed and set aside a while back.

My mother used to make them when I was a kid. My brother and I loved them – bite after bite of buttery goodness. Although the original recipe calls for baking the batter in Dariole Moulds, my mom used to make them shaped like a regular cupcake- since she did not own a dariole mould. And then bathed them in jam and desiccated coconut. So I made them the same way in cupcake pans- not because I do not own dariole moulds (I actually don’t) but because that’s they way I remember english madeleines to be.

English madeleines are different from their counterpart French madeleines. While the french make the their sponge cake in a shell like shape, the english smother it in jam and roll it in coconut, losing the shell shape for a more cone like shape.

This recipe has been in our family for 20 plus years now, my mom got it from a UK edition of the Good Housekeeping Cakes and Pastry Cookbook. I remember going through this cookbook as a child and then later when I was in college, and now that I am baking in my own home I asked my mom to lend it to me. There is a lamington recipe that my mom made from this book as well. Hopefully I will get to share that recipe with you guys soon.

With things a little busy at my end I was thinking of posting this recipe later, but after V told me how a colleague came to his office asking for the recipe, I decided to post this sooner than later. And what better testament to how good something is than someone coming to you (or your husband) later and asking for its recipe.