Paris Bakery Cakes by Ruth Paget
My family has been going to Paris Bakery in Seaside, California for more than thirty years to buy baguette bread with a five-year hiatus when my husband Laurent and I lived in Stuttgart, Germany.
What a lot of people do not know is that Paris Bakery can make French, Austrian, and German cakes and pastries with advance notice for parties. They often have snack size versions of pastries available for purchase for tasting as well.
Some of Paris Bakery’s beautiful and delicious confections include:
-Diplomat Cake-
This round cake that is served in wedges is perfect for watching the Diplomat TV series with tea or coffee. It is made with croissant pieces and golden raisins in a Grand Marnier egg custard and topped off with a maraschino cherry and a whipped cream rosette.
-Fraisiers (Strawberry Cake) or Framboisiers (Raspberry Cake)-
This yellow layer cake is filled with mousseline cream and strawberries. It is iced with whipped cream and garnished with toasted and sliced almonds.
-Opera Cake-
This cake is perfect for theatre nights. It is made with two layers of yellow cake and one chocolate layer flavored with coffee syrup. The alternating layers are filled with mocha buttercream and chocolate ganache. Ganache is creamy, fudgy frosting.
-Napoleons-
Mille Feuille dough filled with pastry cream. Mille Feuille means 1,000 layers.
-St Michel-
This dessert is made up of one layer of chocolate mousse topped with a layer of Grand Marnier mousse.
-Linzer Torte-
This Austrian pastry is filled with jam and has a lattice piecrust topping.
Two holiday cakes you might want to try are the bûche de Noël (Yule log) and the galette des rois (kings’ cake). The galette des rois is eaten two weeks after Christmas and comes with a crown for the person who finds the fève (porcelain figurine) in their piece of cake.
These cakes will get you started on a French cake tasting adventure.
By Ruth Paget, author Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
