Feeding Chickadees
 Do you ever think
This could be your last week?
Last day?
Last moment?
What do you dream?
Would you change anything?

What would be on your
day-to-day to-do list?
What would be on your
life's to-do list?

Which one will you do?

There's always
laundry
dishes
work
sleep
hair to wash
mundane things.

Tomorrow
I want to
Splash in puddles
Get muddy
Dance in the rain
Do something I've never done.

And dream
Of what is
And what could be.

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Recipe: Chocolate Madeleines

Reflections on life and Madeleines somehow seem to go together. Maybe it's because when we think of Madeleines, we remember Marcel Proust’s autobiographical novel, Remembrance of Things Past, which begins with his mother serving him tea and "those short, plump little cakes called petite Madeleine’s, which look as though they had been molded in the fluted scallop of a pilgrim's shell."

As the narrator begins to eat his Madeleine, dipping it into the tea, he is overcome with memories and he becomes aware that the simple Madeleines bear “. . . in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.”

However, as charming as that recollection is, according to Patricia Bunning Stevens:

“Madeleine’s had existed long before Proust’s boyhood. Numerous stories, none very convincing, attribute their invention to a host of different pastry cooks, each of whom supposedly named them for some particular young woman. Only three things are known for sure. One is that Madeleine is a French form of Magdalene (Mary Magdalene, a disciple of Jesus, is mentioned in all four gospels). Another is that Madeleines are always associated with the little French town of Commercy, whose bakers were said to have once, long ago, paid a "very large sum" for the recipe and sold the little cakes packed in oval boxes as a specialty in the area. Finally, it is also known that nuns in eighteenth-century France frequently supported themselves and their schools by making and selling a particular sweet.

Commercy once had a convent dedicated to St. Mary Magdalene, and the nuns, probably when all the convents and monasteries of France were abolished during the French Revolution, sold their recipe to the bakers for an amount that grew larger with each telling."

---Rare Bits: Unusual Origins of Popular Recipes, Patricia Bunning Stevens [Ohio University Press: Athens] 1998 (p. 178)

Whatever its origin, these delightful pastries have become a national treasure for the French and I was thrilled, in June of this year (2010), to experience eating an authentic Madeleine in Paris, France.


I also love making Madeleines myself and have experimented with various versions. They are not only fun to make and tasty, but they are also dainty to eat. Not nearly as messy as our ever-popular cupcake.

This recipe is for Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleines, from Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link).

The photo of the Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleines is taken against a backdrop that is actually a table runner of riddles; not exactly the Proust Questionnaire, but definitely a conversation starter!

Recipe: Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleines

One of my daughters had a bake sale at school today to raise money to adopt an endangered animal. I pulled out my trusty brownie recipe and popped a candy cane in each mini cupcake.

Recipe: Brownies

Makes: 1 8x8 pan or 2 dozen minis

v½ cup (1 stick) butter, melted

1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
½ cup flour
1/3 cup cocoa
¼ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
Nuts (optional)

Instructions

Heat oven to 350˚F. Grease a mini muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, stir together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add eggs, and beat well. Stir together flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt. Gradually add to egg mixture, beating until blended. Stir in nuts, if desired.

Fill a piping bag (or freezer bag), and fill the mini muffin cups. Bake for 12-15 minutes.

Brownie Frosting
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons cocoa
1 tablespoon light corn syrup or honey
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons milk

Whisk all ingredients to a spreading consistency.

I'm slowly working through the recipes I missed before I joined Tuesdays with Dorie and Week 2 of TWD was all about chocolate! Four types of chocolate, in fact. In a brownie. {Actually, the recipe called for 3 ounces of unsweetened chocolate, but I used semi-sweet instead, and it turned out great!}

Using the best chocolate I could find (Callebaut) made these brownies taste even better. As well, the crunch from the pecans that I used was a nice contrast to the chocolate.

Recipe: Quintuple Chocolate Brownies

You can find the recipe for Quintuple Chocolate Brownies in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours (affiliate link) by Dorie Greenspan. To see how a few of the early TWD adopters fared, click Laurie of quirky cupcake, Michelle of Sugar and Spice, and April of Abby Sweets.

Yield: This recipe made 24 regular-sized cupcakes.

Tasting Notes
They were the best brownies I've ever tasted! And my nephew and daughters had to earn their brownie by posing for some food photography! In the end, they thought it was worth it! {However, one picked off all the chocolate-coated purple sunflower seeds and gave them to me. Another didn't like the nuts, but I had only put nuts in half the batch so she hunted for one without the offending ingredient. And another wanted hers without frosting! Besides that, they were a huge hit!} Other Brownie recipes you may like:
• Brownie Pops
• French Chocolate Brownies