Madeleines are the perfect accompaniment to afternoon tea - these buttery sponge cakes (often mistaken for cookies because of their small size) are slightly browned and crispy on the outside while remaining soft and tender on the inside. A typical dessert of the Lorraine region, madeleines are said to have originated in Commercy.
They are supposedly named after Madeleine Paulmier, the 18th-century pastry chef who first made them for Stanisław Leszczyński, the Duke of Lorraine. Later on, his daughter Marie Leszczyńska introduced madeleines to the court in Versailles, and they attained countrywide popularity soon afterward.
However, what brought them worldwide fame is a passage from Swann’s Way, the first volume of Marcel Proust’s 20th-century literary masterpiece In Search of Lost Time. In painstaking detail, Proust describes biting into a soft little madeleine dipped in linden blossom tea, the taste of which then takes him on a bittersweet journey of nostalgia, evoking long-forgotten memories of his childhood and youth.