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Madeleines with orange flower water and cardamom November 20, 2008 For a simple little cake, the madeleine has attracted quite a lot of attention and controversy over the years. Firstly there are conflicting theories as to how it originated. Larousse Gastronomique quotes Lacam, a chronicler of the history of pastry-making who recorded in Memorial de la patisserie that the great a master pastry chef Jean Avice, who worked with French political leader Prince Tallyrand, invented them, baking them in aspic moulds and naming them madeleines. Others believe that the recipe is much older, and originated in Commercy, a town in Lorraine, where Louis XV’s father-in-law Stanislas Leszczynski, visiting the castle in 1775, was very taken with a cake made by a peasant girl named Madeleine and named them after her. His daughter Marie then introduced them to Versailles. Any writing on this little shell-shaped cake, with its traditional bump on top, invariably quotes Marcel Proust who waxes eloquently about it in Remembrance of Things Past. Sampling a spoonful of tea in which he has soaked a morsel of the cake, he says the warm liquid mixed with the madeleine crumbs gave him exquisite pleasure and triggered memories of being offered a taste of his aunt’s Sunday morning madeleine dipped in her own tea. But then about three years ago Slate writer Edmund Levin conducted his own experiments and found a portion of madeleine dropped into tea then retrieved on a spoon did not fall into crumbs because it was not dry and crumbly enough. He concluded Proust’s madeleine could not have existed. “There was no madeleine with a reasonable recipe that behaves as Proust says.” Proust’s literary cookie may have crumbled, but the madeleine remains a delightful little cake to dip into tea – try some Indian spiced tea. It’s also lovely dipped in dessert wine, as an accompaniment to a fruit compote, or used as the base for small individual trifles. There are numerous recipes but this one I developed works well. It dips and soaks without any Proustian crumbling. I use the wire whisk that comes with my stab blender for mixing and it produces a beautiful light batter. Experiment with the flavouring if you wish – try lemon zest or rosewater or vary the spices.
Madeleines with orange flower water and cardamom 2 large eggs Melt the butter in a small jug in the microwave. Sift the flour and baking powder and add the salt. Whisk the eggs in a medium bowl with the cardamom and a pinch of salt until they are light and frothy. Add the sugar and whisk again until the sugar is well incorporated. Continue whisking and gently pour in about half of the butter. Now add half the flour. Stir together with the whisk. Pour in the remaining butter and the rest of the flour and the orange flower water. Give a final gentle whisk. Place the batter in the refrigerator for at least two hours – or overnight if you wish. Preheat the oven to 230C. If you are using metal madeleine moulds, butter them well and flour them, even if they are the nonstick variety. Chill them in the refrigerator. Put a good teaspoon of batter into each compartment. Don’t overfill – the madeleines expand while cooking. Bake for five minutes until the characteristic bump forms on the cakes. Turn the oven back to 180C and cook a further 5-7 minutes until the cakes are cooked through. You can test by poking a toothpick in the centre. It should emerge clean. Dark non-stick moulds will brown faster on the bottom. Makes about 24.
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