Fruit first
Apples, pears, cherries and berries doing the work, with pastry in a supporting role.
17 recipes
🇫🇷 FranceTarte Tatin
An upside-down apple tart, born from a kitchen accident at a hotel in the 1880s.
🇫🇷 FranceTarte Normande
Normandy on a plate: apples set in a Calvados cream in a sandy sweet crust.
🇫🇷 FranceClafoutis aux cerises
The Limousin's early-summer dessert: whole black cherries baked in a batter that sets somewhere between custard and cake.
🇫🇷 FranceTarte Bourdaloue
Poached pear halves fanned into almond cream in a sweet pastry shell, from the Paris street that named it.
🇦🇹 AustriaApfelstrudel
Paper-thin, hand-stretched dough wrapped around spiced apples and buttered breadcrumbs.
🇵🇱 PolandSzarlotka
Poland's favourite apple cake: a buttery shortcrust base, a deep layer of cinnamon-stewed apples and a second sheet of pastry on top.
🇫🇷 FranceFar Breton
A dense, flan-like custard cake from Brittany, studded with rum-soaked prunes.
🇫🇷 FrancePoire Belle Hélène
Escoffier's 1864 tribute to an Offenbach operetta: a whole poached pear, vanilla ice cream and hot chocolate sauce.
🇫🇷 FranceFraisier
France's strawberry showpiece: halved strawberries pressed against the glass wall of the ring, packed with cream between two thin sponges.
🇫🇷 FranceChausson aux Pommes
The apple 'slipper': buttery puff pastry folded over cinnamon apples and salted-butter caramel, glazed and baked until it shatters.
🇩🇪 GermanyZwetschgenkuchen
A yeasted plum sheet cake, fruit arranged like roof tiles beneath a scattering of streusel.
🇮🇹 ItalyCrostata
A rustic Italian jam tart with a lattice top, made from sweet, crumbly pasta frolla.
🇬🇧 BritainBakewell Tart
A shortcrust shell layered with raspberry jam and almond frangipane, drizzled with icing.
🇬🇧 BritainEccles Cake
A small Lancashire pastry parcel, filled with spiced currants and glazed with sugar.
🇳🇱 NetherlandsVlaai
A wide, yeasted fruit pie from Limburg, its crust closer to brioche than pastry.
🇫🇷 FranceTarte au Citron Meringuée
A buttery almond crust filled with sharp lemon curd and crowned with toasted meringue.
🇦🇹 AustriaLinzertorte
A spiced, nut-based shortcrust tart from Linz, latticed over tangy red fruit jam.