Lemon madeleines

Les madeleines au citron sont de petites douceurs légères et parfumées, parfaites pour accompagner un thé ou un café.

Ingredients:

2 eggs

100g sugar

100g flour

80g melted butter

1 lemon (zest and juice)

1/2 packet baking powder

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Beat the eggs with the sugar until the mixture becomes fluffy.

Add the zest and juice of the lemon, then the melted butter. Mix well.

Stir in the flour and baking powder.

Pour the batter into buttered madeleine molds.

Bake for about 10-12 minutes, until the madeleines are lightly browned and a bump forms.

Let cool before removing from the pan.

History of Lemon madeleines:

It is supposedly the first name of a young cook from Commercy, Madeleine Paulmier, who was chosen to name this little cake. Servant of the Marquise Perrotin de Barmont, in 1755, she is said to have made some for the life duke Stanislas Leszczyński.

The latter was giving a reception in his castle of Commercy but, faced with a scandal between his steward and his cook, the sovereign could not conclude the feast for lack of dessert, the cook having carried him away in his anger when he left the castle. It was then that a young servant of the Marquise Perrotin de Barmont, Madeleine Paulmier, proposed the recipe for a cake that she had inherited from her grandmother. For want of anything better, the ex-king of Poland accepted.

The noble assembly reveled in this impromptu and providential dessert. Relieved, Duke Stanislas wanted to be introduced to the woman who had accomplished this "marvel" and, like a gallant man, gave the little cake moulded in a scallop shell the name of the young heroine, Madeleine.

However, the Lorraine historian Charles Sadoul attributes this recipe to a cook of Cardinal de Retz, who had lived in Commercy a century earlier.