French Pastries
Every pastry became a small story worth remembering, and what better way to hold onto a memory than a postcard? A format to collect, or to send along as a little taste of France.
Take a visual tour through the flavours and textures that define French pâtisserie, and see which one makes you crave a trip to the nearest boulangerie.
The soundtrack
Listen while scrolling !
Paris-Brest
Born in 1910, shaped like a bicycle wheel.A journalist orders a pastry to pay tribute to the Paris-Brest-Paris cycling race of 1200 km, that once passed right by Maisons-Laffitte pastry shop.
Macarons
Not as French as it looks ! Macarons originally came from Italy and arrived at the French court in the 1500s, at the request of Catherine of Medicis. They got their iconic creamy center three centuries later, in 19th-century Paris.
Tarte au Citron Meringuée
The lemon curd is an 18th-century English import. The meringue on top may have started as a happy accident : one too many leftover egg whites in an American baker’s kitchen. France just perfected it !
Tarte Tropézienne
Named by Brigitte Bardot herself. On the set of And God Created Woman, she tasted a Polish pastry chef’s brioche-and-cream creation, inspired by his grandmother’s recipe, and gave it it its now-famous name.
Millefeuille
Its name means ‘a thousand leaves’, a bit of poetic exaggeration. The real count, thanks to the layers of folded puff pastry, comes closer to 729. First mentioned in the 17th century, it took another two hundred years before the pastry cream got invented, as we know it for today.
Saint-Honoré
A double homage hiding in the name: the street it was born on, and the patron saint of bakers himself. A 19th-century creation that started out as a simple stuffed brioche, became decades later, the choux and chantilly combination.
Opéra
For decades, two rival pastry houses fought over who really invented this cake. The credit finally went to Dalloyau. Its name was coined by the creator’s wife, who thought its rectangle shape looked just like an opera stage, fittingly enough, since the shop sat right by the Paris Opera.
Religieuse
Named for its resemblance to a nun in a habit: a robe and collar in choux and cream. It was originally a square of choux pastry filled with pastry cream, created in 1856 by a Neapolitan confectioner in his Parisian café.
Baba au Rhum
Born from a picky king’s complaint. Stanislas of Poland found his cake too dry, so his pastry chef soaked it in wine, then later, rum. Legend says its name comes from Ali Baba, the king’s favorite bedtime story
Cannelés Bordelais
A convent legend with no paper trail before 1930 : nuns are said to have baked this with leftover egg yolks from winemaking, and rum straight off the Bordeaux docks.
The tasting
This experiment was for research purposes only ! Watch me devour every pastry and my blood sugar go high…
The in-between
A preview from illustration to postcards. Fingers crossed they turn out as cute as they look here.
The final product
The shop
Take a Bite Home !
My Etsy boutique is live.
This is my first creation ever as a new entrepreneur, under my brand lolo.unleashed. I’m very happy to share my creations and hear your feedback. Go take a peek, and maybe bring a piece home ?