They don’t make rock stars like they used to. "I’m addicted to madeleines," is the best tale of excess that the Daily Star could get out of Alex Turner, lead singer of rock band du jour, Arctic Monkeys. He is said to be hooked on the French cakes.

Songwriting partner, Miles Kane, added in the same article, of a recent sujourn across the Channel: "Two weeks in the French countryside - we’d never drunk so much red wine or devoured as many madeleine cakes. They’re the new hallucinogenic of choice."

Also bringing cakes to the forefront of the popular agenda was Duffy, the Welsh songstress who scored a recent number one hit with Mercy, who offered an impressive insight into the baked goods of her homeland. Grasping the basic premise behind Welsh cakes, she said: "It’s not a big country, you know, we have a language and a community and Welsh cakes - how cool is that we have cakes that are Welsh!"

Welsh cakes - or Welsh skillet cakes, as they were called - were also at the centre of controversy across the Atlantic in the presidential race. Cindy McCain, wife of Republican presidential candidate John McCain, was caught up in sleazy allegations of - gasp! - pilfering a Welsh cake recipe from US TV station Food Network and passing it off as her own.

Senator McCain’s campaign website had featured "McCain Family Recipes", with a ripped-off Welsh cake recipe among them. A McCain spokesman blamed the folly on an over-eager intern.