"....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."
In my lifetime it is almost impossible to quantify the amount of baking I have done. I find it to be one of the most homely, comforting, loving things one can do for one's family. However, it is also one of the most repetitive and conjures up images hidden deep in memory of residue left on bowls and spoons, the sweet smell of hot cakes, and the rush of children to eat them the minute they emerge from the oven.... baking for the family really is a labour of unconditional love.
Repeating the process by using plaster in the cupcake cases produced a similar feeling of calm and repetition but always a pale imitation of the real thing. The huge batch of pale, white, smooth, ghostly cake-like shapes are stacked up and sad looking but out of place and very domestically disrupted.
