Easy Vegan Madeleines Recipe (French Madeleine Cookies) (2024)

Perfectly sweet, light, and fluffyvegan madeleinesthat taste just like the classicFrench cake! Secretly eggless, dairy free, and easily gluten free, these madeleines have a delicate buttery vanilla flavor and are perfect with coffee or tea!

What Are Madeleines?

Madeleines, or petite Madeleine, are a delicious small French cake baked to the size of a cookie that are served with coffee and tea. The batter you use is typically agénoise sponge cakethat yields a delicious vanilla buttery sweet flavor.

Why are they called Madeleines? According to legend, Louis XI was served these little cakes by Madeleine Paulmier in 1755, and loved them so much, he named these cookie cakes after her.

While these are vegan madeleines that we’re making today (and thus, we had to stray a bit from the classic recipe), the taste, flavor, and look are just the same!

What are madeleines made of?

Traditionally, madeleines are made with butter, eggs, flour, sugar, and baking powder. The batter is then chilled and then spooned into the traditional Madeleine pan (which is so important for creating the beautiful rippled edges and dome shape!).

However, because we’re vegan, we cannot consume eggs, butter, or any animal products. Therefore we’re going to have to make a few swaps in order to make these Madeleine cookies vegan friendly!

Vegan Madeleines Ingredients and Substitutions:

To make vegan madeleines, you’ll need:

• Flour:I used all purpose flour, but for gluten free, you can use gluten-free flour (but make sure it contains xanthan gum, like Bob’s Red Mill’s gluten free 1:1 baking flour in the blue bag).
• Sugar:Use organic granulated sugar to be sure that your sugar is 100% vegan.
• Vegan butter:I recommend using Miyoko’s Creamery organic vegan butter. If you use salted, please omit the sea salt in the flour mixture. You can use coconut oil, but it’s not preferred.
• Baking powder:This will help create our dome shape in our vegan Madeleine cookies.
• Applesauce:This replaces the eggs found in traditional Madeleine recipes. I have tried this recipe with aquafaba and chickpea flour, along with flax eggs. The best results come from using applesauce!
• Vanilla extract:For a classic Madeleine flavor, we’re using vanilla. You can also add in lemon zest or almond extract if you’d like as well!

Overview: How To Make Vegan Madeleines:

For the full written instructions and ingredient measurements, see the bottom of this post in the recipe card. You can also hit the “jump to recipe” button at the top of this post! Here, we’ll go over a brief overview of the steps, along with providing visuals for a better understanding of the recipe.

How to make the dome shape of the Madeleines

A good Madeleine has a dome shape, or hump, on the bottom of the cookie. This happens during the resting phase of the batter. Like our vegan blueberry muffins, it’s crucial to rest the batter if you want any sort of high dome or hump in cookies or muffins.

During the resting phase, the baking powder begins to activate while the flour starts to absorb the liquid and creates a more stable rise.

Can I make this gluten-free?

Absolutely! You can easily make these vegan Madeleine cookies gluten-free by swapping in gluten free 1:1 baking flour for the all purpose flour.

How to enjoy Madeleines?

Typically in France, Madeleine cookies are enjoyed in the morning with coffee as a fun breakfast treat or in the afternoon with tea as a tea dessert. Madeleines are served warm instead of cold.

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If you make this recipe, please be sure to leave a comment and a rating ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ below. This helps others to find the recipes! As always, I absolutely love to see your beautiful creations on Instagram and Pinterest, so be sure to tag me there as well!

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