French+Pastries

French Pastries

France is known around the world for its amazing pastries. There are many great pastry shops, even some as old as the 1700s! The La Maison Stohrer is Paris’s oldest pastry shop that opened in 1730 and is still open today. The Polish chef that founded La Maison Stohrer used to cook for the wife of Louis XV. There are many more old pastry shops along with many modern ones.

So, what makes French pastries different? First off, some French pastries use a lot of butter in their recipes causing them to become very flaky, some are light and fluffy pastries like meringues that use egg whites or double cream, and there are custards that make a dessert very rich and creamy. If you want the perfect result you might have to spend several hours of hard work and dedication to make pastries that are delicate and elegant. You probably have heard of macarons, creme brulee, or eclairs, but when you go to Paris you can find tons of pastries you have never heard of before. The Dacquoise is a cake made of many layers of almond and hazelnut flavored meringues or cremes. Or a very simple pastry, the choux pastry has 4 basic ingredients which are butter, flour, egg, and water which create a very airy and flakey bread. Another you may never heard of are madeleines, they are lemon flavored and in a shell shape. They are very light on the inside almost like cake with a harder crust on the outside.

You could go anywhere in Paris to find amazing pastry shops! Some of the best places are Laduree, Jacques Genin, Un Dimanche a Paris, or Pierre Herme. You would especially want to go to shops dedicated to macarons, since a trip to Paris would not be complete without trying some quintessential french cookies.