5 Summer Dessert Recipes

Here are 5 Summer dessert recipes, from nectarine layer cake to apricot tart and raspberry cupcakes. You can also get ready to bake French desserts such as Tarte Tropézienne or a Fraisier !

Read more

Fraisier (French Strawberry Cake)

Fraisier is a French strawberry cake : a génoise (white cake) is filled with crème mousseline and fresh strawberries. This is a classic French dessert.

Lire la recette du fraisier en Français

Fraisier is a fancy French word for strawberry cake. If you want to know how to pronounce it, go : fray zee ey. There, you can now say fraisier ;)

Strawberry cake (this version, filled with cream and fresh strawberries) has been one of my favorite desserts ever since I was a little one. Most birthday cake pictures from my first ten years on this planet are of fraisiers. I think it's because it combines a lot of my favorite things when it comes to desserts : strawberries, cake, and cream. A lot of cream.

Read more

Palets de Dame (French Cookies)

Palets de Dame are a specialty from Northern France. These cake-like cookies with a rum icing require only basic ingredients.

Lire la recette des palets de dame en Français

And another recipe from Northern France ! After tarte au sucre and coquille de Noël, let me introduce you to palets de dame.
These cookies, just like tarte au sucre, are linked to my childhood. I remember the exact taste that the palets de dame we bought (from the same bakery we bought tarte au sucre from) had. I read a lot of recipes, before finding this one. Some had ground almonds, some said to spread a layer of apricot preserves between the cookie and the icing. I don't remember the ones I ate as a child to have had an apricot preserves layer, so I didn't write those down.

Read more

5 French Dessert Recipes

Here are five French dessert recipes (from an actual French baking blogger).

I thought I'd do a little recipe round-up this week, so here are five of my classic French dessert recipes. I know a lot about French desserts, because, well, I'm French. The recipes in this round-up are some of my favorites, and I hope they become yours too !

Read more

Tarte à la Crème (Pastry Cream Tart)

Tarte à la Crème ("Pastry Cream Tart") is just that : a pie crust filled with delicious pastry cream. This French tart is very easy to make (and even easier to eat !).

Lire la recette de la tarte à la crème en Français

I told you you'd need to know how to make pastry cream !

Just like tarte au sucre, tarte à la crème is one of those desserts that takes me right back to my childhood. Tarte à la crème literally translates to pastry cream tart, and it is just that : a pie crust filled with pastry cream.

Preheat your oven, start baking the pie dough (I usually use pâte brisée, which is your regular pie crust dough, but I've also made it with pâte feuilletée (puff pastry) or pâte sablée (shortbread crust). Brisée is my favorite !). While the pie crust is starting to bake, make your pastry cream. Here is my how-to post on making pastry cream. Once the pastry cream has thickened, don't let it cool ! Take the pie crust out of the oven, pour the cream into it, spread evenly, and back to the oven it goes for about thirty minutes, until the dough is baked.

You can head to my Instagram story highlights to see how to make the tart :)

The hardest part of this recipe is waiting for the pastry cream tart to cool down completely so you can eat it. ;)


Here's how to make Tarte à la Crème (or pastry cream tart) :

TARTE À LA CRÈME (Pastry Cream Tart)
by A Cup Of Sprinkles

Tarte à la Crème ("Pastry Cream Tart") is just that : a pie crust filled with delicious pastry cream. This French tart is very easy to make (and even easier to eat !).

Cook time : 45 minutes
1 tart

Ingredients :
1 pie/tart dough
160g of sugar
1L of milk
2 tsp of vanilla extract
100g of flour
2 eggs
20g of butter, melted

Instructions :

Preaheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Roll out the dough and place it in a tart/pie pan. Using a fork, gently poke the bottom of the dough. Start baking.

While the pie dough starts baking, make the pastry cream : In a saucepan, whisk together the milk, sugar and vanilla extract.

In a bowl, mix together the flour, eggs, and melted butter.

Set the saucepan on low heat until the sugar is dissolved, then bring the milk to a boil.

Once the milk is boiling, remove from the heat. Add 2 tablespoons of milk to flour/egg and stir until combined. Then, while stirring, slowly pour about half the milk to the flour/eggs.

Transfer the milk/flour/egg back to the milk remaining in the saucepan (while stirring), and set it on low heat, stirring constantly, until the pastry cream has thickened.

Once the pastry cream has thickened, take the pie crust out of the oven. Fill the crust with pastry cream and spread evenly. Make sure not to overfill the crust !

Bake for another 30 minutes, until the pie crust has a golden color.

Let cool completely before eating.

Let me know in the comments if you make tarte à la crème/pastry cream tart ! You can also share a picture on Instagram by tagging @acupofsprinkles and using the hashtag #acupofsprinkles !

See other French recipes.
See other tart & pie recipes.

Read more

How to Make Pastry Cream

Want to know how to make pastry cream ? Look no further ! This is my favorite recipe (and way) to make pastry cream.

I'm French. I thought I'd remind you of this little detail about me, so that you can trust me when I say that I've eaten my fair share of pastry cream in my quarter century on this Earth, and that this pastry cream recipe I'm sharing with you is the best I've ever used.
This recipe is one I got from my mom's old recipe notebook, and it has never failed me. I've tried other pastry cream recipes but I always end up disappointed. Now, obviously, just like there is no one right way of making chocolate chip cookies or vanilla cupcakes, there are probably a lot of different ways of making pastry cream.
This one is my favorite.

Read more

Almond Sablés (Almond Shortbread Cookies)

These buttery sablés (French shortbread cookies) are made using ground almonds and a couple of drops of almond extract to take the almond flavor up a notch. Only four ingredients and no eggs required !

Lire la recette des sablés à l'amande en Français

I've had a bag of ground almonds in the cupboard for months now ; I received it in the Vahiné box I won last Spring (which also had the chocolate caramel chips I used for these brown butter cookies). I've been wondering what to bake with the powdered almonds ever since, and I finally got around to using them (and no, they thankfully weren't expired, ha !).

I made almond sablés ! Sablés are the French version of shortbread cookies : think roll-out sugar cookies, but more crumbly. These almond sablés only require four ingredients, and they're made without eggs ! These almond cookies are buttery and out-of-this-world delicious, believe me. I added just a couple of drops of almond extract to kick the almond flavor up a notch, but that's optional as the ground almonds already give that amazing almond taste to the sablés.

If you're making these almond shortbread cookies, here's an important piece of advice : don't overbake them ! For me, 10 minutes in a preheated oven were enough ; the almond sablés will definitely look like they aren't fully baked, but that's how you keep them soft for days. If you bake them until they look, well, baked, they'll just become rock-hard as they cool, and that's not what we want. We want soft crumbly almond cookies, not break-your-teeth-hard cookies.

Are you going to try them or do you still need convincing ? If you still need convincing, here goes : my little brother was the first one to taste them and he kept saying they were really good, so delicious, can I have more ? Haha ! Oh, and also : do you know how hard it is to look at the pictures I took of the almond sablés, craving one (or four) but knowing they're all gone ? It's torture. I just had lunch but I'm hungry now :(


Here's how to make these almond sablés (or shortbread) :

ALMOND SABLÉS
by A Cup Of Sprinkles
Adapted from La Mère Pierre

These buttery sablés (French shortbread cookies) are made using ground almonds and a couple of drops of almond extract to take the almond flavor up a notch. Only four ingredients and no eggs required !

Cook time : 10 minutes

Ingredients :
300g of flour
230g of butter, softened
100g of sugar
125g of ground almonds
Almond extract (optional)

Instructions :

Whisk together the flour and sugar. Cream the butter

Gradually mix the flour/sugar to the butter.

Add in the ground almonds and a couple of drops of almond extract and knead until everything is incorporated. The dough will look very crumbly but it will come together the more you mix it.

Cover the dough with cling wrap and chill in the fridge for an hour.

Preheat the oven.

Roll out the dough on a floured surface using a rolling pin (about 5mm/¼ inch thick) and cut out shapes using cookie cutters. Place the cookies on a baking paper covered baking sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes (300°F/150°C). Don’t overbake (the cookies wouldn’t stay soft as they cool) ! The edges on the cookies should barely look golden. The cookies will harden as they cool.

Let me know in the comments if you make these ground almond cookies ! You can also share a picture on Instagram by tagging @acupofsprinkles and using the hashtag #acupofsprinkles !

See other cookie recipes.
See other egg free recipes.
See other 4 ingredients recipes.

Read more

Coquille de Noël (French Christmas Brioche)

Coquille de Noël is a French Christmas brioche. Originally from Northern France, this brioche will be perfect on your Christmas Day breakfast table !

Lire la recette de la coquille de Noël en Français

I feel like my duty as a French dessert blogger is to share French recipes. I mean, it makes sense, right ? As a result, today's recipe is a traditionnal French Christmas recipe.


Coquille de Noël is a brioche from Northern France (by the way, this tarte au sucre is another recipe from Northern France - can you guess where I live ?). This brioche is only available in stores around the Holidays (which is a shame because it's delicious). When you start seeing coquilles in stores, you know Christmas is coming.


This Christmas brioche, shaped as a swaddled baby Jesus, is a staple of Christmas day breakfast or Holiday snacks. In elementary school, before Christmas break, we'd get a little bag filled with chocolate, an orange or a clementine and a coquille. It's not Christmas if we haven't eaten our weight in coquille de Noël - at least in my house.

Read more

Fondant au Chocolat

A classic French dessert, fondant au chocolat is an easy-to-make chocolate cake that you'll want to bake if you can't choose between chocolate brownies or chocolate lava cakes.

Hi !
After a break, we're back to chocolate ! In cake form, obviously. Let me introduce you to fondant au chocolat, a classic french dessert, the lovechild of chocolate brownies and chocolate lava cakes. Yep, you read that right. Fondant au chocolat is smack dab in the middle between those two desserts. It is delicious.

In French, fondant means melty/melting, so you can be assured that this chocolate cake is just melt-in-your-mouth heavenly goodness. Eat it warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream, or cooled with a couple tablespoons of vanilla custard or whipped cream.

Read more

Tarte Tropézienne

Tarte Tropézienne is a classic French dessert. You're going to love this brioche filled with cream (pastry cream folded into whipped cream) !

This week I'm sharing one of my favorite dessert : Tarte Tropézienne ! What the heck is that, you're asking ? Well, "Tropezian Tart" is a dessert that's originally from St Tropez. It's a brioche that's filled with a mix of pastry cream and whipped cream, and it was apparently named by none other that Brigitte Bardot !

I first made one a couple months ago, and gave a couple slices to my grandparents, who spent a lot of holiday time around St Tropez. My grandma assured me there was nothing missing, not even orange blossom water, which I'd seen added to some recipes. So if you give this recipe a try, you'll most definitely feel like you're seating in the sun in the South of France ;)

Read more

Tarte au Sucre

Tarte au sucre (literally "sugar tart") is a specialty from the North of France. A thin round brioche is topped with a mixture of heavy cream and light brown sugar. This classic French dessert is easier to make than it looks !

Lire la recette de la tarte au sucre en Français

So, I already complained about the weather in my last post, but here I go again : where is spring ? It's been so cold and rainy and ugh lately. I need comfort food.

So I made this tarte au sucre.

This is comfort food for me. When I was younger, there was a bakery in town that made the Best Ever Tarte au Sucre. We'd have one on birthdays, or just on a random Tuesday after school. It was the most delicious dessert in the world. Unfortunately, the bakery changed owners, and then closed down, so I'll never have the Best Ever Tarte au Sucre again.

This recipe won't ever come close to what I used to eat when I was a child, but it is still a perfectly good tart.

This is a specialty from Northern France, where I live, and it has nothing to do with Québec's sugar pie (who knows why the French Wikipedia page puts them together).
The base of this tarte au sucre is a brioche, and it is topped with cream and light brown sugar, making it the perfect treat to ruin your diet :) I had some pearl sugar on hand after making a Tropézienne, so I added a tablespoon before baking and one after for good measure ;) This sugar tart is very easy to make, don't let dry yeast discourage you !

TARTE AU SUCRE
by A Cup of Sprinkles

Tarte au sucre (literally "sugar tart") is a specialty from the North of France. A thin round brioche is topped with a mixture of heavy cream and light brown sugar.

For a 10" pan

Ingredients :
For the brioche :
25g of sugar
5g (1 tsp) of salt
7g (2 tbsp) of dry yeast
10cL of milk (room temperature)
300g of flour
2 eggs
100g of softened butter, cubed
For the topping :
5 cL of heavy cream
150g of light brown sugar
2 tbsp of pearl sugar (optional)

Instructions :

Make the brioche : Mix the sugar in half the milk, and the dry yeast in the other half of the milk.

Mix the flour and the eggs, then add in the milk. Knead the dough, and add in the butter.

Let the dough rest for 20 to 30 minutes.

Spread the dough in a pie or tart dish or cake pan, and let rise in a warm spot for 40 minutes.

After the 40 minutes, preheat the oven.

Prepare the topping : mix the cream with the light brown sugar.

Using a toothpick, poke large holes in the dough, leaving about an inch around the edge, and making sure you don't go all the way through.

Pour the topping on top of the brioche. Add the pearl sugar if using it.

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the tart is golden brown.

Eat warm.

Read more

Halloween Ghost Meringues

Halloween Ghost Meringues : two ingredients + black sugar pearls = easy Halloween treat !

Lire la recette des meringues fantômes d'Halloween en Français

Halloween is coming and I've got an easy treat for you to make : ghost meringues !
You'll just need eggs, sugar, and some black pearl sprinkles. Once you've transferred the meringue batter to a piping bag fitted with a round tip, pipe some ghost looking blobs on a baking sheet : hold the pastry bag perperdicular to the baking sheet, squeeze while slowly lifting the bag and release. Add a couple black sprinkles for the eyes, bake, and you're done !

HALLOWEEN GHOST MERINGUES
by A Cup of Sprinkles

Easy ghost meringues for Halloween with only 2 ingredients and black sugar pearls

Cook time : 90 minutes
Yield : about 15 small meringues
Keywords : Halloween, meringues

Ingredients :
3 egg whites
180g (3/4 cup + 2 tbsp) of powdered sugar
1 pinch of salt (optional)

Instructions :

Using a hand or stand mixer, beat the egg whites with a pinch of salt until firm. Gradually add in the sugar and beat until the mixture looks fluffy and glossy.

Preheat the oven to 120°C/Th. 2.

Transfer the mixture to a pastry bag and pipe on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. To make ghost meringues, hold the piping bag at a 90° angle, and press the bag gently while slowly lifting it. Once you're happy with the ghost shape, gently press 2 black sugar pearls into the meringue ghost to make the eyes.

Bake in the oven on a low temperature (TH1 or 2) for one to two hours, depending on the size of your meringues.

Notes :
– To know if your batter is done, run a knife or spatula in it. If the line disappears right away, keep beating. If it stays, you're good ! You can also know when it's done by taking the whisk attachment of your mixer and turning it upside down. If the meringue forms a peak, you're good to go !
– If you don’t have pastry bags, you can use spoons to shape your meringues.
– The meringues will puff up a little while baking, so make sure you don’t pipe them too close to one another.
- If you don't have black sugar pearls, you can use chocolate chips.

Read more