Prout madeline cookie9/22/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Lerch, whose oversize madeleines are particularly golden because he uses extra-large eggs, with deep orange yolks, from free-running chickens. They're good, cheap and easy to make, and sell well,'' says Mr. ![]() ''I don't know why every pastry chef doesn't make madeleines. ''When I worked in restaurants in Alsace as an apprentice, we'd always stop for afternoon tea and local little cakes called dent de loup,'' the pastry chef and baker explained.ĭent de loup, or wolf's teeth, are prepared from a batter similar to that of madeleines, but are baked in rigid, accordion-pleated pans and dusted with powdered sugar. Lerch, a native of Alsace, makes 48 madeleines each morning because for him, too, they trigger memories. The production is a bit smaller at the little Paris bakery run by Andre Lerch (4 Rue Cardinal Lemoine, Paris 5 Metro stop: Cardinal Lemoine). The company, which began in 1928 with a single worker, now employs 80 people to produce some 80 million madeleines each year. The most famous brand, A La Cloche Lorraine, produced by Maison Grosjean, is packaged in handsome oval wooden boxes and sold in specialty shops all over France. The cake is still linked with the town of Commercy in the Lorraine region in eastern France, where a large number of commercial madeleines are produced. The king and his guests were so delighted, they named the cake after the girl, Madeleine.Īnother version suggests that the little cakes were invented by Avice, Talleyrand's famous pastry cook, and still another insists that Marie Leczynska, the wife of Louis XV, perfected them with the advice of her own cook, Madeleine. A young assistant saved the day by preparing a little cake her grandmother made at home in Commercy. His chef stormed out of the kitchen near the end of the meal without having prepared dessert. The story promoted by commercial madeleine makers in the town of Commercy goes like this: In 1755 King Stanislas of Lorraine was hosting a luncheon. Unlike Proust's vivid memories, the history of the madeleine is slightly clouded. To be truly appreciated - to invade the senses with an exquisite pleasure - madeleines must be dipped in tea, ideally the slightly lime-flavored tilleul, which releases the fragrant, flavorful lemon essence of the little tea cake. Even the best, freshest madeleine has a dry, almost dusty aftertaste when eaten by itself. Like almost everything in France, there is an etiquette, a ritual to eating madeleines. It's hard to know how much Proust influenced or was influenced by custom. Today, as in Proust's time at the turn of century, the golden cakes are found next to the cash register of pastry shops all over the country. One could almost call the madeleine France's national cookie, it has taken such an honored place in custom and history. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses.'' No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran though me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that had happened to me. Proust continued: ''I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. ![]() How could such a simple blend of sugar, butter, eggs, flour and a touch of lemon unleash the flood of memories that filled those volumes of prose we know as ''Remembrance of Things Past''? For Proust, the memories began one wintry day when his mother sent out for ''one of those squat, plump little cakes called 'petites madeleines' which look as though they had been moulded in the fluted valve of a scallop shell.'' With his madeleines, Proust drank an infusion of tilleul, a tea prepared from the dried blossoms of the linden tree. Indeed, one wonders where the moist and golden little tea cake called the madeleine would be without Marcel Proust. Someone once described it as the cookie with the greatest literary clout. ![]()
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