Basque cake, the incomparable crunchy and creamy shortbread to slip into your suitcase

2022-08-12T05:44:58.476Z

Destination pastries (3/7). It is more than a delicacy, but indeed a local product that is difficult to avoid during a stay in the Basque Country. And this cake has the good taste of being able to be kept for several days, making it all the more essential among the memories of your...

For those who have never tasted a Basque cake, the galette may look like a large shortbread with rather invigorating proportions.

The surprise really comes when you bite into it since you discover a filling of pastry cream in its heart which makes the preparation downright gourmet.

On the palate, the crispiness of the shortbread mixes wonderfully with the smoothness of the cream, in a rather unusual combination.

There are also other variants with toppings based on cherry jam or almond cream, local products if any, which necessarily keep longer.

To discover

Stays in France: weekends, hotels and tailor-made stays from our partners

But regardless, this cake has become a real institution in the Basque Country, almost a standard-bearer of local gastronomy, since a museum is dedicated to it in the small town of Sare or even a party is dedicated to it every early October in Cambo. -the baths.

And for good reason, the galette would find its origins here in 1830 while a pastry chef,

Marianne Hirigoyen

, rich in a recipe inherited from his mother, came to sell his cakes on the markets in Bayonne.

This date would rather mark the success met by this sweetness at a time when Parisian spa guests flocked to the Basque Country.

The Eguzkia association, which defends a quality label for Basque cake, clearly speaks of a domestic cake that has been made for a long time in each house in order to be enjoyed with the family on Sundays or holidays.

Pastry know-how

The Maison Adam cake is recognizable by its Basque cross and has a registered trademark.

Adam House / Press Photo

In short, there are as many recipes and distinctions between each Basque cake as there are pastry chefs preparing them.

Of course, there are certain unmissable landmarks such as the

Maison Adam

, a distinguished family of pastry chefs from Saint-Jean-de-Luz whose origins date back to the middle of the 17th century and whose Basque cake decorated with a Basque cross is recognizable among all .

“

There is no seasonality for the Basque cake, we sell it all year round.
On the other hand, we find that the pastry cream version is eaten more on the coast and the cherry version in the hinterland, in the mountains,

” underlines Miguel Telleria, who with his brother Andoni, perpetuates the family know-how.

Another unshakable value,

Maison Pariès

, originally from Bayonne, who is also publishing next October a book on the pastry know-how of the Basque Country that has been carried on for five generations.

If the recipes have always been the same since the beginning, with seven stores located in the Basque Country and in France, Pariès is in the process of taking a new turn with the planting of fields of 4,500 hazelnut trees in Urrugne.

Enough to offer a Basque hazelnut cake since last summer.

Addictive but very sweet.

And some are now opting for nuts, caramel… or cheese.

This is the case of chef

Cédric Béchade

, at the Auberge basque, who offers his sheep's cheese version.

“

Rather than trying to develop the umpteenth version of a sweet Basque cake, I had the idea of developing a variant offered at the time of the cheese.
For the filling, I use tomme de brebis, certain aromas of which are revealed when the cheese has risen to temperature.
In fact, we serve this lukewarm version, accompanied by white sheep's cheese and a salad

”, explains the starred chef.

Finally, the

Miettes House

looked into the question of how to make a Basque cake that can be eaten by people with food intolerances.

This specialist in gluten-free pastry thus offers no less than eight variations, with cream and cherry of course, but also with caramel, chocolate, hazelnut... All while using flours such as rice and corn which give with biscuits an incomparable crispness, just to show that the territory of gluttony is open to all!

Four addresses to taste a Basque cake

Gastronomic, the starred chef Cédric Béchade offers a savory version of the Basque cake.

Press picture

Maison Adam, 6 place Louis XIV, 64500 Saint-Jean-de-Luz.

Such.

: 05 59 26 03 54. Online store.

Maison Pariès, 14 rue du Pont Neuf, 64100 Bayonne.

Such.

: 05 59 59 06 29.

The Basque inn, 745 old Route de Saint-Pée D307, 64310 Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle.

Such.

: 05 59 51 70 00.