Perfect French Pastries

France is not only famous for its beautiful sights but for its many patisseries as well. Its cities are overflowing with the most delicious looking sweet treats that people find it hard to resist not getting their daily fix for a flaky, melt-in-your-mouth delicious pastry. Tourists and locals alike would while away their time at nearby cafés eating delicious pastries while sipping their cappuccino. Also, different specialties are made on different days of the week, which make people crave for more!

There are a wide variety of French pastries but the most common favorites are croissant, éclair, profiterole, beignet, tarte, madeleines, palmiers and macarons. Croissants are crescent-shaped, buttery and flaky pastry. It has the perfect balance of sweetness and puffiness, crispiness and softness. A well-made croissant melts in the mouth and have the person eating it crave for more. Éclairs are made by baking the oblong choux pastry until crisp and hollow and then filled with coffee or chocolate-flavored pastry cream. Other favorite fillings are custard or freshly whipped cream, rum-flavored custard, almond or chestnut puree or fruit fillings. Profiterole or Cream Puff is a choux pastry baked into small round puffs which when cooled become hollow in the middle and are served with whipped cream or custard in the center. Beignets, the French version of a doughnut, are deep-fired pastry often served garnished with powdered sugar. It is an umbrella term for a variety of different pastries that can either be sweet or savory. Sometimes, they are also filled with potatoes, mushroom or meat. Tarte is the French answer to American pies. They are usually made with a thin, flat layer of puff pastry and are topped with fruit. Sometimes, there is a layer of custard in between the pastry and the fruit, but French tartes are always open-faced. Madeleines are little cakes that have a distinctive shell-like shape that have the consistency of a very light pound cake. These little cake-like cookies are a favorite treat among children because of its pronounced butter and lemon taste and are often made with almonds as well. Palmiers are crispy and delicate leaf-shaped cookies made from puff pastry. These are made by rolling out the pastry dough, sprinkling it with sugar and then folded several times. The two sides are then rolled inwards to meet at the center and baked until crispy and caramelized. There is the perfect balance of crispy and flaky and they are just sweet enough. Macarons are delightful little cookies from northeastern France. These are not like its American cousin Macaroons which are dense cookies made with coconut. Macarons, made from egg whites, almond powder and icing sugar, are sandwich-like pastries made with two thin cookies with a thin layer of flavored icing in the center. They are delicately crunchy on the outside and are moist, chewy and flavorful in the inside. For people who find themselves in Paris, they should not resist a bag of macarons. In Champs-Elysees alone, 15,000 of these delightful cookies are sold everyday.