Eggless Saffron Pistachio Halwa Madeleines … one bite into these and the indulgence hits you. At three different times, 3 different people gave me similar feedback. One said halwa, another said laddoo, while a third said wow, like halwa, so good! So here we are, halwa madeleines.
One of my favourite ingredients to play around with in baking is saffron, and as I write this, the list of favourites just seems to multiply. Living in the Indian subcontinent is a blessing for people like me who enjoy the colours and chaos! There’s always something happening, a season change, or the onset of the festive season, often both together.
We’re blessed with local ingredients and flavours, local cuisines and a long year dotted with festivals. It’s enough to inspire anyone to constantly want to play with ingredients like saffron, pistachios, rose petals, ghee, almonds … as I said, the list is infinite, seems to multiply.
A while ago I made some Eggless Lime Madeleines which turned out really special. I think there’s some magic that gets created when almond meal and ghee come together, a certain indulgence. I’ve seen it in happen with my Wholegrain Mawa Cake, a cake that’s been tried several times by folk.
With a blog that’s constantly hungry, I keep thinking of new food to feed it. These madeleines were the result of this. Also the result of some rather fine saffron that I recently used from Urban Platter as I worked some recipes for them.
The Saffron Pistachio Vegan Coconut Pudding turned out rather special. I think I’ll share it next, but for now, these little halwa babies or rather, these eggless madeleines. If you don’t have a madeleine tray, perhaps make them in a mini muffin tray or even small mini tart tins.
Eggless Saffron Pistachio Halwa Madeleines
Ingredients
Dry mix
- 40 g almond meal
- 100 g all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- Pinch salt
- 2 tbsp chopped pistachios
Wet mix
- 120 ml milk room temperature
- 100 g honey
- 70 g Ghee/ clarified butter melted, tepid
- pinch Generoussaffron
To dip
- 50 g dark couverture chocolate melted
- 2 tbsp finely chopped pistachios
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180C degrees.
- Sparingly grease a 12 mold madeleines pan with ghee, and dust with flour.
- In a large bowl, sift the almond meal, all purpose flour, salt and baking powder. Stir through the chopped pistachios.
- ln another larger bowl, heat the ghee slightly {microwave for 30 seconds} and steep the saffron in it. Whisk in the honey, followed by the milk.
- Stir the dry mix into the wet mix, stand for 5 minutes, then ladle into the mold.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes until a toothpick tester comes out clean.
- Turn gently onto a cooling rack, and cool completely.
- Dip into melted dark chocolate and finely chopped pistachios if desired, then leave to set.