Top 15 Best French Cakes
What's a French cake? It's a cake created in France. The most famous French cakes are probably macarons, but there are other types of cakes and pastries that look like nothing you've ever seen.
French desserts have a reputation for being sophisticated and intimidating, but they're not that difficult to make. Best of all, you can use any flavorings or fillings you want — like chocolate-raspberry jam or apricot preserves — to create your delicious variation. Here are some of the most famous French desserts:
Baba au Rhum is a traditional French cake. It is trendy in the Provence and Nice regions of France, and its name comes from the word 'babka,' which was used to describe this type of cake in Poland (where it also originated).
Baba au Rhum is made with brioche dough, usually yeasted and sometimes with added butter. The dough is shaped into small cakes and allowed to rise, then baked in the oven. The dough needs to have high-fat content for baba cakes to be decadent. Once they have cooled, they are often filled with pastry cream or fruit fillings (strawberry is popular) and soaked in rum syrup.
- Baba au Rhum can be served plain or topped with whipped cream, as well as fresh or candied fruit.
- It is a classic cake for special occasions such as birthdays and celebrations.
Buche de Noel is one of many traditional cakes baked at Christmas. It is a rolled cake filled with whipped cream and covered in chocolate frosting.
The Buche de Noel is the French name for a Christmas cake shaped like a log. It often has a light sponge cake for the "log" part and buttercream or whipped cream and jam for filling. The cake comes from the French word bois, which means "wood."
Buche de Noel is decorated to look like an actual Yule log. A bark-like texture is often produced by dragging a fork through the icing, and other decorations such as holly leaves and berries may be added.
Charlotte is a cake or dessert. They are served cold and consist of fruit, cake, or biscuit, often soaked in alcohol and whipped cream.
The charlotte can be sweet or savory, but it usually also includes bread or some other starchy ingredient to soak up the juices from the other ingredients. This gives the charlotte structure and prevents it from collapsing before it is served.
There are sweet and savory varieties of charlotte.
- The most common sweet variety is a Charlotte Russe consisting of ladyfingers (biscuits) or sponge cake lined with Bavarian cream, gelatin, custard, mousse, or a trifle filling.
- A strawberry charlotte may be made with strawberries in season; artificial flavoring may be used if not made with real strawberries.
- Other fruits may also be used to flavor the charlotte.
- A savory version of a charlotte can consist of meatloaf then sliced for serving.
Croquembouche is a French pastry that consists of choux balls piled into a cone and bound with threads of caramel. It is served at weddings, christenings, and other festive occasions. The name comes from the French phrase Croque en bouche, which means "crunch in the mouth."
The pâte à choux (cream-puff dough) is piped through a pastry bag with a wide plain tip into small balls, traditionally about 3 cm in diameter, but can be varied. They are baked until the pastry puffs up (and possibly double in size) and then allowed to cool.
- When the cream puffs are baked and cooled, they are piled into a cone shape.
- A traditional Croquembouche will have stacked profiteroles filled with vanilla custard or whipped cream bound with spun sugar threads (caramel).
- A modern Croquembouche will usually have profiteroles covered in chocolate sauce. Either in caramel glaze instead of spun sugar for appearance's sake.
Dacquoise (pronounced [dakwaz]) is a French cake or a dessert similar to a cake, made with layers of almond meringue and whipped cream, buttercream, or ganache. Dacquoise can be prepared with hazelnut meringue as well.
The name derives from the Occitan word Dacqüosa meaning "something baked in the oven."
A traditional Dacquoise is a round, flat disk made from a base of almond meringue layered with whipped cream, coffee buttercream, chocolate ganache, or tea-infused buttercream. It can also be filled with fruit preserves, including apricot and raspberry.
- Dacquoise can be served as one large cake, but it is more commonly baked in small individual servings.
- They are often topped with caramelized sliced almonds and filled with ice cream when served individually.
The Fraisier is a French cake whose name comes from the French word for strawberry, fraise. It is a variation of the classic Génoise cake layered with crème mousseline and fresh strawberries. A typical fraisier cake has two layers of sponge cake filled with crème mousseline, an enriched pastry cream that adds butter to the essential pastry cream. As desired, it can also be flavored with vanilla, chocolate, or another flavoring. The sides of the cake are covered in almond paste (a marzipan-like substance), and sliced strawberries are arranged on top.
Gâteau Basque is a traditional French cake from the Basque region of Southern France and Northern Spain. It's known for its rustic appearance and rich almond filling.
It is said that Gâteau Basque was invented for the wedding of Napoleon Bonaparte's nephew to a Spanish princess in 1839. This cake is a specialty of the French Basque Country, and it is typically eaten on special occasions such as weddings or Christenings. Other reports say that it was created to use up leftover bread crumbs, but we think that sounds like an urban legend!
- The cake itself has a rustic appearance, with the edges appearing to be slightly burnt or scorched.
- The cake is usually filled with vanilla pastry cream, but this recipe calls for almond filling instead.
- If you can't get hold of almond extract, you can substitute it with vanilla extract instead - it will still taste great!
A Paris-Brest is a French dessert, a ring of choux pastry (think light and airy doughnut) filled with creamy praline buttercream. According to legend, the first Paris-Brest was made in 1910 for the first long-distance bicycle race from Paris to Brest and back. This was a popular event of the day, and its route was chosen as a tribute to a previous race from Paris to Brest, which took place in 1891 by automobile. The shape of the pastry is meant to mimic bicycle wheels.
Petit fours are bite-sized cakes. Petit four sec are dry - they are small squares or rectangles of almond sponge cake that have been soaked in simple syrup, and then covered with fondant and royal icing.
Petit four Frais are small cakes made with chocolate, fruit or jams, creams, and custards. The secret to this recipe is the pound cake mix – it's moist and straightforward to prepare. It makes an excellent base for all sorts of toppings. The result is a rich, moist cake with beautiful colors on top.
Quatre-quarts cake is a French sponge cake made with equal weights of the four principal ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. It has been described as "the most popular recipe in France."
The name Quatre-Quarts means "four quarters" or "four fourths" and refers to the fact that this cake is made with equal proportions of the four main ingredients: flour, butter, eggs, and sugar. Because of its simplicity and versatility is also known as "Cake au Yaourt," or yogurt cake.
There are many variations on the basic recipe, including adding
- chocolate chips,
- nuts,
- dried fruits (cranberries),
- Or orange zest to the batter.
Gateau St. Honoré is a French cake first made in Paris in the 19th century. The cake is named for Saint Honoré, the bishop of Amiens, and is the patron saint of bakers and pastry chefs.
The cake consists of a puff pastry base (pâte à choux) topped with round cream puffs arranged in a circle around the edge of the base. The puffs are then filled with pastry cream or whipped cream. Finally, caramel is poured over the top of the cake while it's still hot so that it drips down between the puffs. The caramel gives the Gateau St. Honoré its distinctive appearance.
As you know that;
- Although Gateau St. Honoré may look challenging to make, it's relatively easy compared to many other fancy cakes.
- Making the caramel is a more complicated step, but even that can be skipped if you want to take a shortcut and use store-bought caramel sauce instead.
Clafoutis (pronounced klah-foo-TEE) are a French cake with a custard-like batter and fruit. The fruit (traditionally cherries) is arranged in the cake pan, and then covered with the batter, which puffs up around the fruit as it bakes.
Clafoutis are similar to a Dutch Baby or German pancake. But differ in that it uses fruit and is typically served for dessert rather than breakfast.
You can use any berry or stone fruit for this recipe – fresh or frozen. Try something new and exotic, like
- Blackberries, Boysenberries, Raspberries, and Cherries,
- Or stick to more traditional Blueberries, Strawberries, and Peaches.
The Financier is a small French cake flavored with beurre noisette (browned butter) and almond flour. It was created in the 19th century by a pâtissier of the same name in the financial district of Paris.
A financier is an oval-shaped sponge cake with browned butter and almond flour. Usually baked in individual molds, financiers are similar to madeleines. The ingredients include egg whites, almond powder or almond flour, and beurre noisette (browned butter). They are often topped with sliced almonds or glazed with icing.
- Financiers are denser and moister than regular sponge cakes because they contain more egg whites than yolks.
- Nuts are ground into meals and incorporated into the batter. They may be flavored with almond, pistachio, hazelnut, or walnut, giving them a slightly grainy texture and nutty flavor
- . Traditional versions use only almond meals, but modern versions frequently substitute part of the almond meal with hazelnut.
Mille-feuille is a classic French cake that takes a little time to prepare but is well worth the effort. The name means "a thousand leaves" in French, which refers to the layers of puff pastry that make up the cake. It is one of the most popular cakes in France and has seen many variations worldwide.
The cake consists of three layers of puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) sandwiched with two layers of crème pâtissière (pastry cream), sometimes whipped cream or jam. The top layer is dusted with confectioner's sugar and garnished with edible flowers, chocolate shavings, or candied fruit.
Opera French Cake is a classic and elegant cake. The cake is a French butter cake with coffee and chocolate ganache layers. It's usually topped with more chocolate ganache and coffee buttercream frosting.
Opera cakes are traditional French cakes. The cake is made with layers of almond sponge cake (known as Joconde in French) soaked in coffee syrup, layered with ganache and coffee French buttercream, and covered in a chocolate glaze.
- The cake is made by sandwiching three layers of almond sponge cake with two layers of dark chocolate ganache.
- The cake is then topped with a layer of chocolate icing and decorated with chocolate shavings.
- Chocolate is the main ingredient used to make this dessert. It also contains cocoa powder, delicious taste, and exquisite aroma.
The Blueberry French Custard Cake is one of the most delicious and straightforward cakes you will ever make. This cake is a perfect choice for breakfast or tea time. It is so simple, moist, and delicious that you'll wonder why you haven't made it before.
You can make this cake using other berries instead of blueberries if you like. All you do is add in a bag of frozen mixed berries (or your favorite) instead of the blueberries. You can also change things up by adding a cup of chopped nuts with mixed berries.
So Best of all to you to create your delicious variation of French cakes.
