Madeleines

These small scallop-shaped sponge cakes were made immortal by the French writer Marcel Proust around 1912 in his celebrated novel Remembrance of Things Past, in which the protagonist recalls the taste of a madeleine dunked in lime blossom tea, given to him by his aunt. I particularly like what food writer A. J. Liebling had to say about the connection: “In the light of what Proust wrote with so mild a stimulus, it is