Madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions.
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
These small scalloped-shaped sponge cakes were immortalized by the french writer Marcel Proust in his novel In Search of Lost Time
No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of Madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little Madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea.
— Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
You will love these small heavy cakes with a hump in the middle that were made famous by the bakers of Commercy .
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
Ingredients
9 oz granulated sugar
4 oz bread flour
4 oz cake flour
4 oz ground blanched almonds
6 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
Grated zest of 2 lemons
9 oz clarified butter plus extra for buttering the pans
2 tsp vanilla extract
Powdered sugar
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
Directions
- Butter and flour the molds. For a crispier crust, brush the pans with butter and then coat it with granulated sugar.
- Sift sugar, bread flour and cake flour together. Mix in ground almonds.
- Whip eggs and salt until foamy. Add the flour mixture in parts alternating with the butter. mix in lemon zest and vanilla.
- Cover the batter and let it rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour.
- Now you can use a pastry bag to pipe the batter into the molds or you can use a spoon to drop about one tablespoon of batter into each mold. You don't need to spread the batter to fill the mold, the batter will spread on its own to fill the molds.
- Bake at 450°F for about 8 minutes. Unmold and sift powdered sugar over the tops.
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
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| Photograph by Mark Jefferson |
