{sms} (or should I call it sweet melissa tuesday) almond honey madeleines

I am oh-so-late with this post.  Crazy Baking Week was last week and I couldn't squeeze this entry into my schedule.  But I HAD to make these cookies, because I bought the madeleine molds, like, 10 years ago, and they have seen the light of day but twice.

I would bake them more often, but both times these scallop-shaped cookies turned out a bit dry.  I blame it on the miniature-sized mold and over-baking.

I substituted almonds for the hazelnuts, as I had them readily available.  I also added a few drops of almond extract to enhance the almond flavor, as a few people complained about the lack thereof.

Marcel Proust immortalized these cookie-cakes when he wrote about eating one in 

Remembrances of Things Past —

"I raised to my lips a spoonful of the cake... a shudder ran through my whole body,

 and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary changes that were taking place...
 I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal.
Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy?"

He then goes on to describe how the taste of the tea and cake brings to mind a long-forgotten memory. I had my Proustian Moment with The Maple Walnut Cookie, and certainly, the flood of feelings combined with the taste memory is extraordinary.

Not to quibble with Melissa, but I believe that if you were to show this recipe to a pastry chef, she would say that the ingredients more closely resemble a financier than a madeleine.  (Financiers have ground nuts, brown butter, and egg whites; madeleines are a genoise- sponge- batter, using flour and whole eggs. Perhaps that's why these cookies worked out so well for me!)  Regardless, this financier-masquerading-as-a-madeleine is a tasty, moist, delicious cookie, and I'm so glad that Debbie of Café Chibita chose it. You can see the other bakers' results at Sweet Melissa Sundays.