Last weekend I had a couple of friends in town, which meant a weekend full of semi-touristy things. One thing they wanted to do, and rightly so, was eat French pastries. I ate more pastries this weekend than the rest of the year combined. (Not really.) Every pâtisserie has it's own unique creations, but some things remain the same. Here is a guide to the staples when it comes to little cakes, tarts, and cream puffs.
Le Millefeuille
A tripple-decker puff pastry and creme filling sandwich, topped with icing or powdered sugar. Sometimes you get a little strawberry thrown into the mix. The combination of height, crisp pastry, and soft cream makes this pastry extremely difficult to eat elegantly. Not first date food.
Le Paris-Brest
Choux pastry puff filled with praline flavored cream filling. This pastry is round, like the bike wheels in the Paris-Brest bike race it commemorates.
L'Opéra
An opéra is a moist almond cake with chocolate and coffee filling/icing. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what's going on inside the opéra...
La Tartelette aux Framboises
A tartelette is simply a mini tart. It comes in lots of different flavors, but raspberry is my favorite. A hard tart shell is filled with custard and topped with raspberries. Simple, but perfect. Tartelette au citron is PDG too - lemon filling with whipped meringue on top.
L'Éclair ou La Religieuse
The éclair and the religiese are the same except for their shape. Both are cream puffs covered in icing. The éclair is long and thin and the religieuse is two balls stacked on top of each other. The standard flavors are chocolate and coffee, however others exist, such as the violet-flavored religieuse and caramel, grand marnier, and pistachio eclairs pictured above. A divorcé is a religiuese that is half chocolate, half coffee.
Le Flan
This is not your Spanish flan. French flan is like custard pie, but firmer. The butter-yellow slices of it kind of look like cheese cake, though the texture is different. The taste is simple but delicious: eggy, not too sweet, and vanilla-y.
Le Cochon
Since the new year, I've seen these long patisseries dressed up as pigs all over Paris. I asked what they were once and was told that they are chocolate covered in pink marzipan. I kind of want to get one to keep as a pet.
Sugar and spice,
Maria
A tripple-decker puff pastry and creme filling sandwich, topped with icing or powdered sugar. Sometimes you get a little strawberry thrown into the mix. The combination of height, crisp pastry, and soft cream makes this pastry extremely difficult to eat elegantly. Not first date food.
Choux pastry puff filled with praline flavored cream filling. This pastry is round, like the bike wheels in the Paris-Brest bike race it commemorates.
An opéra is a moist almond cake with chocolate and coffee filling/icing. To be honest, I'm not entirely sure what's going on inside the opéra...
A tartelette is simply a mini tart. It comes in lots of different flavors, but raspberry is my favorite. A hard tart shell is filled with custard and topped with raspberries. Simple, but perfect. Tartelette au citron is PDG too - lemon filling with whipped meringue on top.
The éclair and the religiese are the same except for their shape. Both are cream puffs covered in icing. The éclair is long and thin and the religieuse is two balls stacked on top of each other. The standard flavors are chocolate and coffee, however others exist, such as the violet-flavored religieuse and caramel, grand marnier, and pistachio eclairs pictured above. A divorcé is a religiuese that is half chocolate, half coffee.
This is not your Spanish flan. French flan is like custard pie, but firmer. The butter-yellow slices of it kind of look like cheese cake, though the texture is different. The taste is simple but delicious: eggy, not too sweet, and vanilla-y.
Since the new year, I've seen these long patisseries dressed up as pigs all over Paris. I asked what they were once and was told that they are chocolate covered in pink marzipan. I kind of want to get one to keep as a pet.
Sugar and spice,
Maria
Maria, I'd love to know - were you actually in Paris when you had the french flan? I, too, had this when I was there and would love to know if there's somewhere in Australia to buy it or if there was a recipe! Thanks, Helen
ReplyDelete