Divine French Pastries You Absolutely Must Try At Least Once

Let’s face it: there’s a reason why French pastries are so beloved, they are just absolutely delicious. There’s nothing like buying a freshly baked pastry from a little patisserie first thing in the morning. While you might be familiar with the basics like macarons and croissants, there are still so many more delights to sample. Here are some delicious French pastries that are an absolute must-try.

Canelé

Opéra

The Opéra cake is not only absolutely stunning with its many layers, it’s so unbelievably delicious too. It combines layer of coffee-soaked almond sponge cake, chocolate ganache, coffee, buttercream, and finished off with a glossy chocolate glaze. If this isn’t your idea of divine, then we can’t see eye to eye.

Milles Feuilles

Milles Feuilles means “a thousand leaves” in French, and it refers to the many layers of delicious thin and crispy pastry held together with custard and topped with a layer of icing. The dessert is simple but excellent, and first appeared in La Varenne’s 1651 cookbook Le Cuisinier Francois.

Kouign-amann

There’s a reason why the kouign-amann is known as the “fattiest pastry in the world,” is it is made with a flaky dough that incorporates a significant amount of sugar and butter that results in heavenly caramelized crispy layers. Its name comes from the Breton words from cake (kouign) and butter (amann) and is said to have been invented by accident when 19th century a baker from Douarnenez wanted to save a batch of failed dough. He added butter and sugar to it and created this incredible pastry.

Chouquettes

Chouquettes are airy pâte à choux pastry puffs that are light and airy and are adorned with sucre perlé, literally meaning pearled sugar, which are coarse sugar crystals that don’t lose their shape and texture when baked. These are profiterole shells and are enjoyed for breakfast or an afternoon snack.