More Madeleine Madness

Lacking the time to bake last week in San Francisco (Wendy and I found better use for our time over tea at the W Hotel instead), I made the most of this weekend by making Madeleines. My sister's recipe was, as she had promised, superb: meltingly delicious and easy.

I am trying to recall if any other cake in the literary domain is as celebrated as this one; and I am coming up short (yes, yes, thank you; I know I'm 5'1). Marcel Proust makes so much of the Madeleine in what amounts to three pages of melancholic recollection that any word association game involving "Madeleine" might necessarily resolve with "memory" or with "Proust." The memory of a childhood in Commercy and of eating Madeleines in his aunt Léonie's bedroom comprise the opening sequence of his novel, A La Récherche du Temps Perdu, and mark the scalloped cookie's chief claim to fame.

But Madeleines existed long before Proust. Lynne Olver, a reference librarian who runs Food Timeline, notes that the exact origin of the Madeleine has not been discerned, although one legend attributes the cake to Avice, chef to Tallyrand, the French statesman. The inspiration of the name is also unknown; there abound many chefs who claim to have created the cookie in honor of a certain young woman. Linda Stradley, at What’s Cooking in America writes that a girl named Madeleine from Commercy made them for Stanislas Leszczynska, the exiled Polish king, and that the cakes grew to popularity under the reign of his daughter Marie Leszczynska, Queen of France, and her husband, Louis XV. As Marie was singularly quiet and virtually invisible in court life following the birth of her ten children (and the advent of Louis' mistresses), the notion of her popularizing anything at the French court seems unlikely.

According to Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, three facts are known about Madeleines: One is that Madeleine is the French version of the name Magdalen (Mary Magdalen, a disciple of Jesus, is mentioned in all four gospels). Another is that Madeleines are always associated with the town of Commercy, whose bakers were said to have paid a "very large sum" for the recipe and sold the little cakes packed in oval boxes as a specialty of the town. And finally, nuns in eighteenth-century France frequently supported themselves and their schools by making and selling a particular sweet. Commercy once had a convent dedicated to St. Mary Magdelen. Perhaps the nuns sold their recipe after all the convents and monasteries of France were abolished during the French Revolution? Perhaps to a group of bakers in a small town in the Lorraine region?

I did discover two additional things about Madeleines this weekend: one is that silicone molds are sold only to marketing victims (Hubby: "Pot, meet kettle.") because they're crap and utterly useless, failing to properly convey the golden crustiness of a traditional mold. And secondly, that some people are infinitely more obsessive and have far more time on their hands than me: this article, The Way the Cookie Crumbles" takes the cake. Literally.

Comments

[keiko Oikawa]

Hi Cath, what sweet looking madeleines! I'd love some of those for breakfast...

[Cath]

Hi Keiko! Any time you're on this side of the pond, let me know and I'll whip up a batch for you. :-)

[ladybell]

Just had to say that I loved reading your post. My two-year old LOVES these sinful cakey cookies so much. I have been trying to find just the right pan instead of giving Trader Joe's all of my madeline business. Any good advice of where to get the best pan?