Gateaux, cakes, and tortes all contain roughly similar ingredients, such as flour, eggs, sugar, and butter. However, a torte usually requires less flour. All of this loveliness is often layered. Tortes are very European – the most famous of which is the Viennese Sachertorte.
Here’s a list of some of the many delicious cakes available, and this list is by no means exhaustive. These are the cakes I commonly see locally in the Charente and in Nico’s boulangerie BSweet in our nearby town of Aigre, with many locals and those from further afield buying his fantastic cakes:
Saint Honore
A cake with a puff-pastry base, topped with crème pâtissière and with a small choux ball filled with pastry cream and attached with caramel sugar all around the outside of the cake. Said to be the Patron Saint of French Bakers.
Vacherin
An iced cake usually reserved for celebrations. It has layers of ice cream or sorbet, meringue, and cream.
Croquembouche
This is an impressive choux-ball pyramid/cone cake reserved for weddings, christenings, and special occasions. The small choux rounds are filled with vanilla custard or cream, piled up into a cone shape and stuck together with spun sugar.
Dacquoise
This is a layered cake made with layers of almond or hazelnut meringue separated by whipped cream or ganache.
Frasier
This is traditionally a layered cake with two layers of sponge and crème mousseline inbetween. Sliced strawberries and almond paste adorn the outside, and there are whole strawberries on the top.
Paris-Brest
This is a ring of choux pastry made in the shape of a bicycle wheel to commemorate the Paris to Brest long-distance cycle race. Inside, the choux is filled with praline buttercream.
Mille-Feuille
This cake comprises layers of puff pastry separated by crème pâtissière with the final layer topped in icing, sugar, or caramelised nuts. It is often seen replicated on an industrial scale in the UK, but none so fine as the real deal.
Opera
This is a layered almond sponge cake soaked in coffee and filled with chocolate ganache. It’s usually topped with chocolate glaze.
Macarons
Be sure to taste a hand-made macaron while you’re in France! Made of two sweet and crispy meringues with a chewyalmond-flavoured cream in the centre, they come in all sorts of flavour. Caramel, lemon, rose, pistachio, chocolate, strawberry, orange, lavender… and just about every flavour imaginable!
Religieuse
Conceived of in 1856 in a popular Paris Café, this is made of two spheres of choux pastry, one larger than the other with the smaller sitting atop. The choux is filled with pastry cream, and both are covered in icing and decorated with frills of buttercream to look like a monk.
Éclair
You probably already know this one! The eclair is a long choux pastry filled with cream and topped with icing – usually chocolate, coffee or pistachio. I have never got used to this as in the UK, they are made with a light, white, whipped-cream filling. Here in France, it is predominantly a heavy chocolate, coffee or custard cream centre, and it always surprises me!
Madeleine
Traditionally from the Lorraine area of France, these are small sponge cakes baked in a shell-like mould. Perfect for goûter (snack time) or at breakfast!
Canelé
These small (approximately 5cm high) rum and vanilla flavoured cakes have a crispy outside and softer inside. They are a regional speciality of Bordeaux.
Baba au Rhum
Originating from Provence and nice, this is a decadent rum-soaked sponge with cream topping. It’s sometimes sold with a little pipette of extra rum to squirt in at leisure!
Tarte au Citron
There’s not a soggy bottom in sight in France’s lemon tarts – they have a crisp, crumbly pastry base with a zingy lemon curd filling, and are sometimes topped with soft meringue.
Tarte au Chocolat
As above, but filled with a rich, dark chocolate custard. As with all French cuisine, the emphasis is on high-quality produce, and the quality of chocolate here is the key. An absolute cracker is sold at our local boulangerie in Gourville: La Couronne de Jadis. Our neighbour is practically addicted to these tarts, and I’m hot on his heels.
Flan
The humble flan is a French staple. Made of shortcrust pasty with a heavy egg custard filling, they are very filling!
Beignet
The French version of a donut! These are usually little bals of dough, deep-fried – sometimes with a jam filling. I have not yet discovered a custard filling here in the Charente, but they are always rolled in sugar.
Charlotte
This cake is usually made with ‘ladies fingers’ sponge biscuits lining a cake mould and, in the centre, a mousse filling with flavours of choice. Strawberry Charlotte or Apple Charlotte, for example.
Tarte aux pommes
A crispy, crumbly pastry tart case with sliced apples on a syrupy apple base. Just delicious!
