The nice (not fattening!) artwork of French pastry | USAEMALL.com

It’s a good croissant. Very good. Golden, crispy and flaky. When you break it, the laminated, crusty outside sort of explodes, and I twist apart the buttery, greasy, pleasantly elastic interior. Tres bon. This is a croissant d’excellence. Premiere classe.

Beside it, I have a small cup of dense, smooth coffee in a tiny white cup and still water in a glass.

This is a very good start to the day.

And this is a very good start to this story.

For I have given my mission of bringing you the best in French pastries — not just as a buyers’ guide, but because pastries, more than many things, give us an entree into French culture. Over centuries, French pastry has been refined into an art form.

The pastries in this story are as French as Edith Piaf, Coco Chanel, the Eiffel Tower and the Citroen 2CV.

And be sure, the French are very different to us Australians. They are saturated and shaped by their complex historical and political past and present, with customs and behaviours that configure and contort them, with hubris that’s sometimes mistaken for being haughty. Opinionated, perhaps sometimes pompous. A bit uppity, even pretentious.

But the French have a sweet tooth and respect decadence. Give them a petit noir coffee, a glass of tepid water and a good pastry, and a true personne Francaise is a happy personne.

Why are pastries so important in France?

+ I think part of the reason is undoubtedly that the best of them are handmade. The best of them are produced by skilled artisans — the bakers of France, from the tiniest village baker to the revered producers of Paris, are respected. They train for years, mastering the craft, knowing exactly how to produce pastries that are both tasty and visually appealing.

+ Then there are the ingredients. For they must be high quality. Bakers favour local produce; they take pride in provenance.

+ And then, the best pastries are also intrinsically beautiful. A good, colourful macaron is like a brilliant jewel.

PASTRY CARTE DU JOUR

my Top 10

Croissant

It’s top of the list, of course. Buttery, flaky … and actually (even embarrassingly) with its roots in Austria. It might be viennoiserie pastry, but it was named for the crescent shape in which it is formed by hand. Yeast-leavened dough is layered with butter, rolled and folded many times by hand, then laid in laminations in a sheet. They are usually eaten for breakfast with coffee. Plain is generally preferred, and chocolate-filled comes in second.

Pain au chocolat

But when it comes to gorgeous pastries, the pain au chocolat is surely the belle of the pastry ball. This rectangular piece of flaky, lightly sweetened, pastry dough has two pieces of chocolate placed inside. The dough might contain a tiny dose of chocolate chips. Then, it is just baked in the oven until golden-brown on the outside — but not long enough to spoil its softly textured interior.

Pain aux raisins

Many people might be more familiar with the similar French pastry known as escargot (or a “snail”) because, although made from the same ingredients, they are rolled into the shape of a snail. But pain aux raisins are a cuboid in shape, maybe cut into individual portions, glazed with icing sugar. These finely laminated treats are made with puff pastries spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar.

Brioche

To me, this is the most historically French pastry of them all. The French refer to this as an “enriched bread”, as its high egg and butter content gives it richness and a “tender crumb”. It needs a dark, golden, flaky crust. An egg wash might give it extra colour and sparkle.

Brioche is generally eaten for breakfast. Served plain, it’s called pain brioche. It is frequently served with fruits (particularly strawberries) or jam or chocolate ganache.

Macaron

Looking at a display of beautiful, small, colourful macarons is rather like looking in a jeweller’s window. These meringue-based delights made with egg white, icing sugar, granulated sugar, ground almond and food colouring are a real test of the baker. It must remain just moist and quickly melt in the mouth. It must have a taut skin and slightly chewy texture. While the filling might be ganache, buttercream or jam, the “cookies” sandwiching it must be smooth with a ruffled edge. And they must, must, must be perfected and beautiful in appearance.

Eclair

Surely one of the most globally recognisable French pastries, I often feel I see fewer eclairs on the shelves of France than I do other French pastries. They are made with a basic batter called pate a choux baked in empty shells then filled with cream and finished with a rich chocolate icing.

Profiterole

This choux pastry ball is usually filled with whipped cream, custard, pastry cream or even ice-cream. Then best are, surely, finished with chocolate sauce. Dig back much further and the word profiterole once referred specifically to a plain pastry without filling.

Mille-feuille

There are records of this back in the early 1800s. The name translates to “a thousand sheets” — describing the many layers of the pastry and filling. Traditionally, mille-feuille is made by alternating layers of puff pastry with vanilla custard, topped with fondant icing and decorated with chocolate piping. There are generally three layers of puff pastry, with two layers of creme patissiere between them.

Paris-Brest

Records show that this was created by Louis Durand in 1910. A patissier in Maisons-Laffitte, he came up with this French pastry to commemorate the Paris–Brest–Paris bicycle race. Made from choux pastry and praline cream, it is sort of shaped like a giant doughnut and traditionally 15 to 20cm across. It is usually filled with praline cream — a paste made from ground almonds or caramelised hazelnuts, which is mixed with cream or butter.

Chouquette

Chouquettes are small, hollow puffs of choux pastry, filled with cream or custard and crowned with chocolate sauce. While chouquettes look like eclairs and profiteroles, they are produced as small balls covered with sugar crystals and usually sold by bakeries warm and in a paper bag ready to be eaten.