Standing in front of a French pastry display comes with a strong chance of swooning and the challenge of making a selection among all the buttery beauties and cream-filled delights. Even though you can’t bring home everything in the case, the good news is that you can definitely make many decadent French pastries and desserts in your own kitchen. Here’s our list of easy-to-follow recipes for classic French pastries, from flaky pain au chocolat to delicate macarons and ethereal cream puffs.
Fun and Fancy Macarons
Photo by Sarah Crowder / Food Styling by Drew Aichele
To add an extra-festive touch to macarons, pastry chef Paola Velez paints them with several colors of edible shimmering luster dust. For the filling, pick from homemade dark chocolate ganache, or store-bought jam, apple butter, or firm caramel sauce. The macarons can be made in advance and frozen; wait to fill until ready to serve.
French Lemon Tart
Cara Cormack
In this classic citrus tart, the lemony custard is poured into the baked tart shell, so there’s no need to worry about an undercooked crust or a curdled filling.
Pain au Chocolat
Photo by Victor Protasio / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Claire Spollen
Pain au chocolat, sometimes referred to as a chocolate croissant, means chocolate bread — and this recipe ensures that there’s chocolate in every bite.
Hazelnut and Crème Fraîche Meringues with Lemon and Parmesan
Photo by Greg DuPree / Food Styling by Torie Cox / Prop Styling by Audrey Davis
Perfect for tea or a light dessert, these elegant double-decker meringues are filled with tangy, gently sweetened crème fraîche and drizzled with a generous spoonful of hazelnut praline. But the real head-turning touch comes from the garnishes — ethereal flakes of Parmesan and sunny flecks of lemon zest.
Midsummer Fruit Tart
Greg Dupree / Food Styling by Kelsey Moylan / Prop Styling by Josh Hoggle
Make Julia Child’s fruit tart when berries are at their most fragrant and a bite of summer’s sweet bounty is just what you want at the end of a meal. The base for the tart consists of a cleverly constructed free-form crust made from a rich cookie-like dough baked with a thin layer of cheesecake filling.
Floating Islands with Dark Chocolate Crème Anglaise and Toasted Pistachios
Victor Protasio
The rich, deep chocolate flavor contrasts with the incredibly light and airy texture of this classic French dessert. Use your favorite high-quality dark chocolate for the best results.
Baba au Rhum Punch
Photo by Antonis Achilleos / Prop Styling by Christina Daley / Food Styling by Ali Ramee
Chef Paola Velez’s take on baba au rhum adds layers of dark rum and fresh fruit flavor to homemade brioche. With almost a cup of top-shelf dark rum between the cinnamon-spiked rum soak and the strawberry-peach Rum Punch Coulis, this opulent dessert is only for adults. Serve warm or at room temperature with scoops of vanilla ice cream to round out the sweet spice notes in the rum.
Sour Cherry Tart with Almond Frangipane
Photo by Jennifer Causey / Food Styling by Melissa Gray / Prop Styling by Heather Chadduck Hillegas
This irresistible tart takes full advantage of the affinity between tangy sour cherries and rich, nutty frangipane. A sprinkle of toasted almonds on top adds a welcome dose of crunch. It’s essential to seek out sour cherries for this tart, whether they’re fresh, frozen, or jarred.
Grand Marnier Soufflé
Greg DuPree
In 2018, Food & Wine named this recipe one of our 40 best. In the inaugural issue of the magazine, legendary chef Jacques Pépin shared his recipe for the perfect soufflé. This ethereal citrus-scented dessert is as good today as it was in 1978, proving that some dishes are timeless.
Alain Ducasse’s Gougères
Diana Chistruga
This recipe for gougères starts with a soft choux dough that gets piped out and baked into crisp, airy pockets of cheesy delight.
Corn Flour Madeleines
Victor Protasio
Chef Cassidee Dabney uses a simple countertop electric flour mill to grind flour to order for recipes ranging from savory grits to these sweet and tender corn flour madeleines. More finely ground than cornmeal, corn flour yields a softer, cake-like crumb while delivering the same sweet and nutty aroma.
Kouign-Amann Cake (Breton Butter Cake)
© Greg DuPree
We got our first taste of kouign-amann — the irresistibly sweet and flaky pastry from Brittany in northwestern France — in 2004 from authors Naomi Duguid and Jeffrey Alford, who traveled the world in pursuit of recipes. Making kouign-amann is not too different from making croissants, wherein butter is folded into a rich, yeasty dough. But here, it melts and browns as it bakes, producing a dreamy aroma. Kouign-amann also includes sugar, which creates crisp, golden caramelized bits that are truly impossible to resist.
Brown Butter Pistachio Financiers
© Tara Fisher
Top Chef winner Kristen Kish adds ground pistachios and nutty brown butter to her adorable little cakes, based on a classic French petit four.
Salted-Caramel Cream Puffs with Warm Chocolate Sauce
© Christina Holmes
One secret to pastry chef David Lebovitz’s irresistible cream puffs — profiteroles in French — is the salted butter he uses to make the perfect caramel custard filling. To prepare these in advance, the custard and chocolate sauce can be refrigerated separately for up to three days.
Spring Millefeuille
© Abby Hocking
Celebrity chef Alex Guarnaschelli recommends using a serrated knife and a sawing motion to cut even (and fairly neat) portions of millefeuille. Or just put the dessert in the center of the table with some forks and let things happen as they may.
Jacques Pépin’s Favorite Pound Cake
© Edward Pond
The French call pound cake quatre-quarts (“four-fourths”) because it is made with equal parts flour, sugar, eggs, and butter. Chef Jacques Pépin’s mother, aunt, and cousin all have their versions. He loves plain slices dipped in espresso and often folds in candied citrus peels to make a French fruit cake.
Plum Galette
© Con Poulos
This tart is a favorite dessert at chef Jacques Pépin’s house. You can make it with any seasonal fruit, such as rhubarb, peaches, cherries, apricots, or apples. The dough is buttery, flaky, and very forgiving. And it comes together in 10 seconds in a food processor.
Raspberry Clafoutis
© Tina Rupp
For this classic French dessert, vintner Alix de Montille swaps in raspberries for the traditional cherries. You can, of course, make it with sweet cherries if you’d like; apricots and plums would also work.
Milk Chocolate Pots de Crème
© Con Poulos
Pot de crème (“pot of cream”) is a traditional French custard typically served in a pot-shaped cup. This milk chocolate version from pastry chef Frank Urso is super silky and dense.