Food Recipes | A French Collection

The Best of Breton Cakes – Brittany’s Most Popular Desserts

Life in Brittany includes our fair share of delicious cakes and especially the cakes traditional to the region which are collectively called 'Breton cakes', even though this broadly includes biscuits, lollipops and caramels.

The Best of Breton Cakes - Brittany's Most Popular Desserts

Breton cakes are famous for their layers of pastry and creamy butter which is proudly produced locally. The most well known of the 'Breton Cakes' is the Gâteau Breton (Breton Cake), Far Breton and the Kouign-Amann. Surprisingly, the popularity of these desserts with inhabitants of Brittany doesn't correspond with how well known in general.

Sweets that have originated in the region include Salted Caramels, Niniches (artisanal lollipops from Quiberon), and Gavotte (a lacy golden mini crêpe). Breton butter cookies (Sablés Breton) are also a very popular dessert in Brittany. You'll find them in prettily packaged in tins in just about all supermarkets, souvenir stores, markets and in many boutique boulangeries.

French Salted Butter Cookies (Sablé Breton)

French Salted Butter Cookies (Sablé Breton)

If there's one dessert or sweet that makes me feel most at home in Brittany it's the little French salted butter cookies, the Sablé Breton. They are always included in our first grocery shop that we do when making our way to our village home in Côtes d'Armor after arriving in France from Australia.

With their delicate thin serrated shape and hint of salt, the Sablé Breton makes me think of the wild, but beautiful sea that borders the coastline of Brittany. This is because the biscuits are made with sea salt from our region, the famous Fleur de Sel salt.

Fleur de Sel

French Fleur de Sel is collected off the coast of Brittany and sold around the world for its prized subtle flavour. The largest production and collection of the salt is from the towns of Guérande (called Fleur de Sel de Guérande), Noirmoutier, and Île de Ré.

Ratatouille Recipe

Ratatouille Recipe - A Perfect Autumn Food

Bonjour mes amis, and welcome to another recipe post. Ratatouille is the quintessential French vegetable dish that's colourful, healthy, easy to make and delicious. You may have seen recently on our socials, Instagram or Facebook, that we shared how we cooked Ratatouille to celebrate the arrival of all our new copper pots and the start of autumn in France.

Ratatouille seemed an obvious choice to mark the autumnal equinox with its rich fall colours, pleasingly reflecting in the copper pan, and yummy flavour. I think the colours of courgettes, zucchini, onions, tomatoes and yellow peppers mixed together are reminiscent of autumn. What do you think?

Far Breton – An easy & delicious recipe from Brittany

Far Breton - an easy & delicious recipe from Brittany

Okay, so you want to eat something sweet that's easy to cook, doesn't have fancy ingredients and is very French? Then Far Breton is just what you want. It's the great French classic #2. Far Breton comes in at #2 after Kouign Amann which is the big #1 dessert of Brittany.

Far Breton in its authentic version contains prunes because sailors used to bring back dried prunes from their voyages and prunes added a fruity touch to the cake. You can also add a touch of rum or raisins to add more flavour. This recipe serves 8.

Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake Recipe

Brittany is a region with a rich heritage that is divided into four departments: Finistère, Morbihan, Côtes d’Armor and Ille et Vilaine. It's Celtic past is full of legends including Merlin, Arthur and the knights of the round table in the forest of Brocéliandes. The dramatic coastline, medieval towns, thick lush forests, colourful markets and traditional food draws lots of visitors to Brittany.

Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake

Food our region is famous for includes crêpes and galettes, fresh seafood, Plougastel strawberries, Guerande salt and Saint Malo’s Bordier butter. Pastries that are unique to Brittany are the Gâteau Breton (Breton Cake), Far Breton and the Kouign-Amann. Sweets that originated in the region include Salted Caramels, Niniches (artisanal lollipops from Quiberon), and Gavotte (a lacy golden mini crêpe). One of our family's favourite desserts is Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake. It travels well so is easy to take for picnics or to friend's homes when invited for lunch.

Kouign Amann Recipe

Kouign Amann - A Traditional Buttery Dessert of Breton

In Brittany, cakes and biscuits are known for their star ingredient, butter and ranking right up the top of Breton favourites is the Kouign Amann. Invented in Douarnenez around 1865 according to Bretagne Tourisme, this speciality cake is made with a few simple ingredients and is essentially a bread dough to which you add sugar and salted butter, and then fold repeatedly like making puff pastry. The quality of the salted butter and the resting time of the dough are both essential to the success of baking this cake. During baking, the butter-sugar mixture melts, and gives the cake a crusty caramelised outside and a soft layered inside.

This regional speciality that is sold in boulangeries all over Brittany, even has its own association, the Véritable kouigan amann de Douarnenez Association. The Association is made up of bakers and pastry chefs who promote the Kouign Amann.

Pot-a-feu Recipe

Pot-au-feu is one of those quintessential meals you'll find served up in homes across France. It's a great family meal that easily feeds a few and can even be varied depending on what you have available. Here's a delicious Pot-a-feu recipe for you to try.

Pot-a-feu Recipe

Pot-a-feu translates to 'pot in the fire' and refers to the slow cooking of meat and vegetables in a pot, historically over the kitchen fireplace (fire). I cook mine in a dutch oven and it cooks well. Although this meal takes time, it's well worth the effort.

Pot-a-feu can be served a couple of different ways. Either with the broth, meat and vegetables all together, or with the broth served alone as the first course and then the meat and veggies as the second course. When served as two courses, it's usual for the platter with the meat and veggies to be accompanied by small dishes of horseradish or Dijon mustard.

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

Summer time in France is magical with long days, alfresco dining and long beach rambles. It's also the perfect season to enjoy an ice cold sorbet. So with summer just around the corner here's a mouth-watering raspberry sorbet recipe for you.

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

This sorbet brings out the sweet, tart flavour of local raspberries.

You can make a sorbet with any other summer fruit (peaches, nectarines, strawberries, melons etc) by substituting the same quantity of fruit for the raspberries. Don’t forget to add the lemon juice regardless of the fruit you choose, because it highlights the fresh fruit flavour. You will need an ice cream maker for this recipe.

The Best of Breton Cakes – Brittany’s Most Popular Desserts

The Best of Breton Cakes - Brittany's Most Popular Desserts

French Salted Butter Cookies (Sablé Breton)

French Salted Butter Cookies (Sablé Breton)

Fleur de Sel

Ratatouille Recipe

Ratatouille Recipe - A Perfect Autumn Food

Far Breton – An easy & delicious recipe from Brittany

Far Breton - an easy & delicious recipe from Brittany

Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake Recipe

Gâteau Breton or Breton Cake

Kouign Amann Recipe

Kouign Amann - A Traditional Buttery Dessert of Breton

Pot-a-feu Recipe

Pot-a-feu Recipe

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

Raspberry Sorbet Recipe

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