The term madeleine, used to describe a small cake, seems to appear for the first time in france in the middle of the 18th century. In 1758, a french retainer of lord southwell, an irish jacobite refugee in Ò€¦ A madeleineÒ€ℒs texture is a cross between a cookie and a mini cake, so we found that chilling the dough overnight produces the lightest and airiest interior and a nice crisp exterior.