22 French Desserts For Any Occasion

Few cuisines place desserts on quite the same pedestal as French cuisine. French desserts tend to feature simple, fresh ingredients, like seasonal fruit or local dairy. Some of the best dishes were created centuries ago (think crème brûlée or clafoutis), and some much more recently, but all are decadent and delicious. One fine example is the Opera cake. This light cake is made with a fluffy almond sponge, layered with bittersweet chocolate ganache and mocha buttercream. The entire cake is enrobed in a glossy chocolate glaze and goes well with an after-dinner espresso.

Crème brûlée is a rich and creamy dessert made of a custard baked in a water bath. The signature finishing touch is a topping of sugar, caramelized with a blowtorch or under a broiler.

French for “thousand sheets,” this flaky dessert has layers of crisp puff pastry filled with fluffy pastry cream and fresh fruit or jam. This particular recipe uses a lemon-flavored cream and pairs it with a double dose of crisp freeze-dried raspberries and tart raspberry jam.

Once you have your hands on the necessary madeleine pan, the recipe isn’t that difficult to get right. Somewhere between a soft cookie and small cake, madeleine batter is flavored with lemon zest and vanilla bean, then finished with a dusting of powdered sugar.