Elderflower madeleines with rhubarb glaze

Easier to make than you might think.

Proust has a lot to answer for.

Not least when it comes to madeleines. He singlehandedly elevated them to the status of 'mysterious French delicacy', giving them a rarefied air of complexity and intricacy, surely beyond the skill of the home baker. In fact, they are the work of mere moments and can be knocked out by the dozen with minimal effort.

And I should know.

A few years ago, teaching cookery classes at Taste of London, I made 621 madeleines in a weekend. In a tent. With an audience. Of mostly drunk people. And each class was only 30 minutes long. Which just goes to show how simple and quick madeleines are to make.

Encouraging elderflowers

The elder bush in the ditch that abuts our garden wall began as a little whip a few years. I noticed it amongst the weeds as I was strimming the ditch (which, apparently, it is our responsibility to maintain even though it’s not our land and even though its unimpeded flow after heavy rains helps prevent the entire village from flooding – welcome to rural parish life). And all I have done since is avoid strimming it. The rest, nature has taken care of and, within 3-4 years it has grown to around 10 foot high and is, every May and June, dripping in flowers.

(A girly elderflower moment captured by

Kirstie Young

for our Simple Things series - find it in the current May edition.)

I get a bit girly about elderflower (see above)

Picked and boiled with sugar every year to make elderflower cordial, I feel like I’m winning at rural life. The fact that it gets haphazardly decanted into only semi-sterilised vessels that may include anything from old Nutella jars to screwtop wine bottles, dims none of the halcyon sheen for me.

The ditch elder is not quite ready to pick yet. But I still have one last random bottle of cordial leftover in the back of the cupboard under the stairs to make these madeleines with, in anticipation of the harvest to come.

Elderflower madeleines with rhubarb glaze

Unashamedly girly, these delicate little cakes look fancy, but are in fact a doddle. The batter keeps in the fridge overnight especially in a piping bag, and freezes brilliantly too, thawing in just a couple of hours. All that’s left to do is pipe it into the moulds and bake. Which gives you time to don a suitably floral frock before serving up a plate of fresh madeleines like a perfect Trollope-esque vicar’s daughter.

Makes 18-20

• 100g unsalted butter

• 1 tbsp elderflower cordial

• 2 medium eggs