July  10

Marcel Proust's Birthday
 

  

Marcel Proust was born in Paris in 1871. A novelist, essayist, and critic, he is best known as the author of À la recherche du temps perdu (In Search of Lost Time also titled Remembrance of Things Past in its initial English translation). Begun in 1909 and finished just before his death, the semi-autobiographical Remembrance of Things Past consists of seven volumes spanning some 3,200 pages with more than 2,000 literary characters. The elaborate stream of consciousness and the infinity of minute, details so characteristic of Proust's writing often makes his work, at least in the English translations,  rather ponderous to read. One critic summarily dismissed Remembrance of Things Past as "the tale of a man who fell in love with a cookie." However,  Graham Greene called Proust the "greatest novelist of the 20th century", and W. Somerset Maugham called the novel the "greatest fiction to date."

In Swann's Way, the first volume of Remembrance of Things Past, published  in 1913,. the narrator recalls
 
  "She sent 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. And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the cake. 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."  

 
   
 
   
This passage immortalized madeleines, the tiny scallop-shaped cakes that have become synonymous with Proust. The extraordinary mosaic of minute detail and nuance so characteristic of Proust's work has created a deja Combray that Proust recorded in Remembrance of Things Past (Combray was joined with the adjacent town of llliers in 1971 and renamed itself Illiers-Combray). Each year thousands of pilgrims visit the town that Proust made as immortal as his made1eines. Many of the buildings and streets are known more intimately by people who have never visi­ted the town before than they are to some of the residents.

During the peak tourist season surrounding Proust's birthday, the local bakeries sell thousands of madeleines each week to the Proustian pilgrims. Probably the most popular of the local bakeries is the Benoit's on the Place du Marche. Their madeleines are baked in a more rounded, scallop-shaped mold than the commercial madeleine plaques or tins, and are much closer to miniature pound cakes, than some of the other genois-style madeleines. Madeleine is the French form of Magdalen (as in Mary Magdalen),

The French town of Commercy used to be the madeleine capital of the world, where the local bakers sell the little cakes packed in oval boxes. Nuns in eighteenth-century France held Leczinski 's original recipe and supported themselves and their schools by making and selling madeleines  Commercy once had a convent dedicated to St. Mary Magdalen.  When all the convents and monasteries of France were abolished during the French Revolution, the Commercy bakers took over production.

Madeleines have  become trendy in the United States, with recipes for numerous variations appearing regularly in cooking magazines. Since American tastes tend to prefer the lighter genois version of the cakette, this is the version included in this section, rather than for its plumper French cousin. Anyone interested in the heavier version should consult Julia Child's, From Julia Child's Kitchen.

So enjoy some delicious madeleines on Proust's birthday while watching the extraordinary Marcel Proust's Time Regained (1999) with Marcello Mazzarella playing Proust.

  
   

Genois Madeleines

 

Special Equipment
2 madeleine tins
 

 
Ingredients  
3 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1&1/4 cup cake flour
1/2 cup clarified butter*		 1 tsp vanilla
dash of salt
flavoring (choose one from following list)
 		  


 
Citrus madeleine flavorings
 

1 tsp grated citrus zest (orange, lemon, lime, tangerine, etc.) and
2 TB fresh citrus juice from the same fruit as the zest
 
Nutty madeleine flavoring

 		 1/2 cup nuts, toasted in the oven for 10 minutes at 400 F., then ground fine. Fold in nuts with flour. (2 TB of cognac or nut-flavored liqueur wouldn't hurt).
 
Chocolate madeleine flavoring
 		 Substitute 1/2 cup dark, unsweetened cocoa for 1/2 cup flour. Increase sugar to 1-1/4 cups. Sift cocoa with flour.
 
Liqueur or liquor
madeleine flavoring
 		 Add 2 TB sherry, cognac, brandy, or liqueur of your choice.

 
Instructions
 
  1. Let all ingredients sit at room temperature for 1 hour.
  2. Cook clarified butter over medium heat in a saucepan until it turns light brown Remove from heat.
  3. Mix l&1/2 'TB butter with 1 TB flour in a cup and spread mixture with a pastry brush inside madeleine plaques. Refrigerate coated plaques for 1/2 hour.
  4. Beat eggs in a small bowl. Pour 3/4ths beaten eggs in a mixing bowl and add flour and sugar. Beat until smooth and creamy. Let mixture rest for 15 minutes.
  5. Beat remaining egg mixture in batter. Add butter, salt, and flavoring. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Cover batter and let rest for 1 hour.
  6. Preheat oven to 375º F.
  7. Spoon 1&1/2 TB of batter into each madeleine plaque. Leave batter in a Iump. Do not spread out evenly.
  8. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until lightly browned around the edges. Unmold on rack, scallop side up.

Make 2 dozen madeleines

 © 2011 Gordon Nary and Tyler Stokes