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

Chocolate Dipped Heart Cookies

These chocolate dipped heart-shaped sablés will be perfect as a Valentine's Day treat !

I’m not even going to call this a recipe. This is more of an idea for a quick and easy Valentine’s Day treat : chocolate dipped heart-shaped sablés.

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

Double Chocolate Cookies

Soft double chocolate cookies are made with white chocolate chips folded into a dark chocolate cookie base.

I called these cookies "double chocolate cookies" because "chocolate white chocolate chip cookies" or "white chocolate chip chocolate cookies" seemed like a mouthful.
These double chocolate cookies are amazing : the rich flavor of cocoa in the base and the sweetness of white chocolate make these cookies the perfect after-school snack for kids, and they'll be perfect with a cup of coffee for adults, too ;) I based this recipe on my best ever chocolate chip cookies recipe, as always. I told you it was versatile !
These double chocolate cookies don't spread much, so don't forget to gently press down on the cookie dough balls before baking ! Eat warm straight out of the oven, while the white chocolate chips are still all gooey and melting, or keep in an airtight box to eat when the mood strikes :)


Here's how to make these white chocolate chip chocolate cookies, aka double chocolate cookies :

DOUBLE CHOCOLATE COOKIES
by A Cup Of Sprinkles

Soft double chocolate cookies are made with white chocolate chips folded into a dark chocolate cookie base.

Cook time : 12 minutes
Makes about 16 Cookies

Ingredients :
170g of butter, softened
200g of sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp of vanilla extract
210g of flour
80g of cocoa powder
2 tsp of baking powder
1 tsp of salt
200g of white chocolate chips

Instructions :

Cream the butter and sugar.

Add in the eggs and vanilla, mix until well incorporated.

Whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt, and gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter/sugar/eggs.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Preheat the oven. Form cookie dough balls (using an ice scream scoop, or spoons), and place them on a baking paper covered baking sheet. Gently press down on the cookie dough balls to flatten them a little.

Bake at 180°/350°F for 10 to 12 minutes. The edges of the cookies should look baked while the center should still look a little soft. Let the baked double chocolate cookies cool on a wire rack.

Let me know in the comments if you make these double chocolate cookies ! You can also share a picture on Instagram by tagging @acupofsprinkles and using the hashtag #acupofsprinkles !
See other cookie recipes.

Read more

The Best Vanilla Cupcakes Ever

This recipe makes the best vanilla cupcakes ever : they stay soft & moist for days ! They'll be the perfect base for any cupcake creations you come up with !

I've shared my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, now it's time to share my favorite vanilla cupcake recipe !
I've tried a lot of vanilla cupcake recipes in the past, but I'd never be happy with them : the cupcakes wouldn't taste the way I wanted them to, or they'd dry out in a day. Then I found this recipe from LilieBakery ; I tested the recipe once, but the order in which I was supposed to add the ingredients didn't really work. The cupcakes still ended up tasting amazing, so I knew I had to try the recipe again, and this time I added the softened butter at the end, instead of mixing it with the eggs and sugar, as that's what I'd had trouble with the first time. Success ! I had finally found the perfect vanilla cupcakes recipe !

This recipe is the one I used for these raspberry mascarpone cupcakes. You might also recognize the cupcakes in these pictures as the ones from this 2 ingredients chocolate buttercream recipe post. This recipe for vanilla cupcakes also pairs up wonderfully with mascarpone whipped cream frosting !
These vanilla cupcakes stay soft and moist for days ! I actually left one, uncovered, on the kitchen counter to see how long it'd stay soft and delicious, and four days later it hadn't dried out !


Here's how to make the best vanilla cupcakes ever :

VANILLA CUPCAKES
by A Cup Of Sprinkles
Adapted from LilieBakery

This recipe makes the best vanilla cupcakes ever : they stay soft & moist for days ! They'll be the perfect base for any cupcake creations you come up with !

Cook time : 25 minutes
12 cupcakes

Ingredients :
100g of flour
2 tsp of baking powder
1 pinch of salt
2 eggs
100g of sugar
1 tsp of vanilla extract
100g of softened butter

Instructions :

Preheat the oven.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Beat the eggs, sugar and vanilla together.

Mix in the dry ingredients. Add in the softened butter and, using a hand mixer, beat on medium speed until well combined.

Line the cupcake pan with baking cases, and fill them with about 1 1/2 tablespoon of batter (about halfway).

Bake for about 20 to 30 minutes, until the cupcakes are a golden color, and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool before frosting.

Let me know in the comments if you make these vanilla cupcakes ! You can also share a picture on Instagram by tagging @acupofsprinkles and using the hashtag #acupofsprinkles !
See other cupcake recipes.
See other "best ever" recipes.

Read more

The 5 Most Popular Recipes of 2017

I know, I know, you're probably getting tired of seeing these "most popular posts" everywhere on the blogosphere, but I really wanted to look back on the recipes I posted this last year and see what you readers liked ! I started this blog in 2015, and being the procrastinator that I am, didn't post my first recipe until October 2016.
And then I didn't post again for months. *facepalm*
Last February, though, I started posting regularly (though still not as regularly as other bloggers), and I feel like I finally reached a nice blogging rythm these past few months, which contributed to getting more traffic to this little ol' blog of mine.

Read more