This recipe is me revisiting the gluten-free coconut madeleines I made a few years ago. A while back, my friends, Ann and Brenda, and I went to a Filipino restaurant in North Hollywood, where we had buko pandan. Buko pandan is a Filipino dessert consisting of sweet coconut milk, young coconut flesh, pandan, puffed rice, and ice cream. It is super light and refreshing, and I just love the flavor of pandan. For those who aren’t as familiar with it, pandan is a leaf that is commonly used in Southeast Asian desserts. In that particular area, it’s referred to as the vanilla of Southeast Asia, because of how frequently it is used to flavor things. Pandan has a perfume-y aroma to it, kind of woody, which makes sense since it is a leaf from a tea, and typically, most pandan desserts are paired with buko, or coconut. Usually buko refers to young coconut, but in this case, I’m referring more to the flavor of coconut in general, which is being represented in the fact that these madeleines are made with coconut flour, coconut milk, and coconut oil. I wanted to re-capture that flavor combination of coconut and pandan in the madeleines in two ways. The first is in the batter, which is already primarily coconut-based. The second is by using both pandan extract and pandan powder in the batter as well, just to make sure that flavor profile is represented there. The madeleines themselves are 100% gluten-free, and have a slight, spongy texture to them, although nothing so out of the ordinary to the point where you would know that they were gluten-free!

A major key to working with gluten-free flours is hydrating your dough properly. I used a fairly generous amount of coconut milk in this recipe, just because that really helps activate the coconut and tapioca flours, and gives the final batter a pleasant lightness to it! I went with the coconut flour since this is obviously a coconut dessert, as well as the tapioca flour, since it is a fairly neutral flour that provides body to a gluten-free baked good. The coconut oil adds another really strong coconut flavor to the batter itself, while the xanthan gum is an absolute necessity in guaranteeing that the batter bakes properly, and holds its structure and shape. For the decoration on these, I did two things. The first is coconut flakes, baked into the batter itself, and the second is a tempered green chocolate shell. I made it using white chocolate, tinted green with a combination of pandan powder, green spirulina, and turmeric powder. Pandan adds that flavor, the green spirulina gives the white chocolate a green-blue hue, and the turmeric, being yellow, helps to negate that blue-ness, and give the shell a more pandan-appropriate green tone. I was inspired to do that kind of decoration because my friend, Ahran, and I made chocolate-coated madeleines, and they were lots of fun! My one piece of advice with them is making sure that you freeze the madeleines after pressing them into the chocolate for at least 10 minutes. When chilled down properly, these will pop right out of the mold, and into your stomachs!

Makes about 12 madeleines:
1/4 cup coconut oil + more for your pan
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 tsp green spirulina powder
2 eggs
3/4 cups coconut flour
1/4 cup tapioca flour
1 teaspoon xanthan gum
1 tbsp pandan powder
1/2 cup coconut milk
2 drops pandan extract
coconut flakes

Start by whipping together your coconut oil, granulated sugar, baking powder, soda, and green spirulina powder until light and airy. Whip in your eggs, one at a time. Sift your flours with the xanthan gum and pandan powder. Whisk into the egg mixture the flours, coconut milk, and pandan extract. Line a nonstick madeleine pan with coconut oil. Pipe in your batter, filling each pan about 90% the way full. Sprinkle on your coconut flakes. Bake at 375 degrees F for 12 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through to ensure even baking.

For the white chocolate shell:
3/4 cups white chocolate chips
1 tsp green pandan powder
1/4 tsp green spirulina powder
1/4 tsp turmeric powder
a pinch of salt

Partially melt the white chocolate over a double boiler. Take off heat and mix in the other ingredients. In a madeleine pan, distribute the chocolate, roughly 1 tbsp, into each tin. Press each baked madeleine, groove side down, into the tins. Then freeze for 20 minutes, or until the madeleines slide cleanly out of the molds.