Pellegrino Artusi original recipe in English translation:
130 grams sugar
80 grams fine flour
30 grams butter
4 egg yolks
3 egg whites [beaten stiff]
a pinch of baking soda
a touch of lemon zest

Pellegrino Artusi original recipe in Italian
Zucchero, grammi 130
Farina fine, grammi 80
Burro, grammi 30
Burro, grammi 30
Rossi d'uovo, N.4
Chiare, N.3
Una presa di bicarbonato di soda
Odore di scorza di limone

Mix the egg yolks with the sugar [for about a quarter of an hour], and when they have taken a bit of white color, add the flour and work the mixture for another quarter of an hour.

Add the butter (melted if it's in the winter) to the mixture, and lastly add the egg whites, beaten [stiff].

Dry the flour on the heat, or in the sun if its summertime.

These pastries can have many different shapes, as long as they are thin and small. Many people use small pastry molds greased with butter and floured, or else a baking pan a little less than a finger deep, and cut the pastry into lozenge shapes and then sprinkle it with icing sugar. You can also make it half a finger deep and stick the lozenge shaped pieces of pastry together tow by two and fruit preserves.



Original Italian text

lavorate prima i rossi d'uovo collo zucchero, e quando saranno diventati biancastri, aggiungete la farrina e lavorate ancora per piu di un quartro d'ora. Unite al composto il burro liquefatto se e d'inverno, e per ultimo le chiare montate.

La farina asciugatela al fuoco, o al sole, se d'estate netela sempre sottile e di poco volume. Si usa metteria oppure in teglia alla grossezza di un dito scarso, tagliandola dopo in forma di mandorle che spolverizzerete di zucchero a velo. Potele anche faria della grosezz di mezzo dito e appicciare insieme le mandorle a due per due con conserve di frutta.

The recipe in this entry was taken from "La Scienza in Cucina e L'Arte di Mangiar Bene manuale Pratico per le Famiglie" compilato da Pellegrino Artusi. The book was first published in 1891. Since then many Italian editions have been published. Olga Ragusa's selection of recipes from Pellegrino Artusi's famous cookbook, titled "The Italian Cook Book," can be found in its entirety at www.archive.org (It's free). The University of Toronto recently published a new English edition of Pellegrino Artusi's "Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well"; many of the recipes in this edition can be found at www.books.google.ca.... Included in this entry is also the one given in "The Italian Cook Book" adapted from the Italian of Pellegrino Artusi by Olga Ragusa. It was published by S.F. Vanni in New York in 1945. For the complete copyright cook book see www.archive.org. This adapted recipe was included as it is slightly different from Pellegrino Artusi's version. The following notes were taken from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia....The genuine petite Madeleine de Commercy Origin Alternative name(s) Petite madeleine Place of origin France Region or state Commercy and Liverdun, Lorraine Details Type Sponge cake Main ingredient(s) Flour, sugar, eggs, almonds or other nuts. The madeleine (French pronunciation: ​[mad.lɛn], English /ˈmædleɪn/ or /ˌmædlˈeɪn/) or petite madeleine is a traditional small cake from Commercy and Liverdun, two communes of the Lorraine region in northeastern France. Madeleines are very small sponge cakes with a distinctive shell-like shape acquired from being baked in pans with shell-shaped depressions. Aside from the traditional moulded pan, commonly found in stores specialising in kitchen equipment and even hardware stores, no special tools are required to make madeleines. A gĂ©noise cake batter is used. The flavour is similar to, but somewhat lighter than, sponge cake. Traditional recipes include very finely ground nuts, usually almonds. A variation uses lemon zest, for a pronounced lemony taste. History Madeleine pan Some sources, including the New Oxford American Dictionary, say madeleines may have been named for a 19th-century pastry cook, Madeleine Paulmier, but other sources have it that Madeleine Paulmier was a cook in the 18th century for Stanisław Leszczyński, whose son-in-law, Louis XV of France, named them for her. The Larousse Gastronomique offers two conflicting versions of the history of the madeleine. Madeleines were chosen to represent France in the CafĂ© Europe initiative of the Austrian presidency of the European Union, on Europe Day 2006. Literary reference Madeleine ingredients In In Search of Lost Time (also known as Remembrance of Things Past), author Marcel Proust uses madeleines to contrast involuntary memory with voluntary memory. The latter designates memories retrieved by "intelligence," that is, memories produced by putting conscious effort into remembering events, people, and places. Proust's narrator laments that such memories are inevitably partial, and do not bear the "essence" of the past. The most famous instance of involuntary memory by Proust is known as the "episode of the madeleine," yet there are at least half a dozen other examples in In Search of Lost Time. 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. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. ... Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it? ... And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom, my aunt LĂ©onie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little madeleine had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it. And all from my cup of tea. Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time.... Photo: Wikipedia.

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