The French Pastry Guide You Didn’t Know You Needed (With a Twist!)

Last updated on July 3rd, 2025 at 07:35 am

The biggest problem with living in France? The pastries. Every single morning, the boulangerie tempts you with golden, flaky, utterly irresistible delights. And if you’re thinking I’ll just pop in for a simple croissant, you’re fooling yourself. Once you step inside and see that perfect French pastry display stacked high with eclairs, tarts, and those delicate choux pastries, you’re suddenly ordering way more than planned. Maintaining your figure? Not a chance. But resisting? Impossible.

If you’re visiting France for the first time and find yourself staring wide-eyed at the glass case in a French pastry shop, wondering what on earth to try first, I get it. Should you go for a Napoleon, all those delicate puff pastry and cream layers? Or maybe a fruit-filled tart bursting with fresh berries? And what about the chocolate pastries, because, let’s be honest, that’s a whole category in itself.

So, how do you choose? That’s where this French pastry guide comes in. We’re talking about the must-try pastries, what makes them special, and how not to look like a total amateur when ordering. Whether you’re after something buttery, fruity, or chocolatey, I’ve got you covered. Let’s dive in, but maybe don’t read this on an empty stomach.

18 French Pastries to Make Your Mouth Water

Walking into a boulangerie or pâtisserie is like entering another world filled with the most delicious pastries you’ve ever seen. There are the classics, such as buttery croissants, pain au chocolat, and macarons. But then there’s the world of modern French pastry, where bakers turn desserts into edible art. What should you choose? Keep reading, and you’ll soon have your favorites picked out.

Croissant

Flaky, golden, and ridiculously buttery, the croissant is the ultimate French pastry. When baked to perfection, the outside is crisp, while the inside is soft and slightly stretchy. The shape of the croissant is legally protected in France. The curved ones are made with margarine, while the straight ones must be all-butter. So, if you want the real deal, go for the straight croissant!

Here’s the twist: the croissant isn’t originally French. It actually comes from Austria! Back in the 17th century, Viennese bakers created the kipferl, a crescent-shaped pastry, and when Austrian baker August Zang opened a bakery in Paris in the 1830s, the French fell in love with it. 

Pain au Chocolat 

If the croissant had a chocolate-loving sibling, it would be the pain au chocolat. Same buttery, flaky layers, but instead of a crescent shape, it’s a neat little rectangle hiding two rich, dark chocolate bars inside. When baked just right, the outside shatters, giving way to the soft, buttery layers inside. It’s best eaten warm when the chocolate is still slightly melted, though, let’s be honest, they’re delicious at any temperature.

Now, let’s clear something up: this is not a chocolate croissant—that’s just something people call it outside of France. In Paris and most of France, it’s pain au chocolat. But if you find yourself in the southwest, don’t be surprised if someone calls it a chocolatine, a debate that has literally divided France. It even entered the French Parliament, with politicians arguing over the proper name. 

Pain aux Raisins 

Swirly, buttery, and packed with juicy raisins, pain aux raisins is what happens when a croissant and a cinnamon roll have a French baby. These are my favorite treat for a Saturday morning before tackling the grocery shopping. The pastry us golden with a slightly crisp exterior with a soft, custardy center sprinkled with raisins that’s just the right amount of sweet. 

Pain aux raisins is actually part of the “viennoiserie” family, pastries that sit somewhere between bread and dessert. And if you ever hear someone call it an escargot, don’t panic; it’s just another name for its spiral shape, not an actual snail! 

Brioche 

Made with flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and a little yeast, it’s richer than your average loaf but still light enough to make you feel like you could eat an entire one in one sitting (and honestly, who hasn’t tried?). You’ll find it in many forms: as a loaf, braided, or the classic brioche à tête, with its little round top. Some are studded with sugar pearls. Some are filled with chocolate or fruit.

Brioche has been around since at least the 16th century, but it really took off in France when butter became more widely available. And while Marie Antoinette probably never said, “Let them eat cake,” if she did, she was likely talking about brioche—because it’s the closest thing to cake that’s still technically bread. 

It’s the base for many other French treats, from pain perdu (French toast) to brioche des rois, a version of the king cake eaten during Epiphany. 

Croissant aux Amandes

Take a day-old croissant, fill it with almond cream (frangipane), soak it in syrup, top it with sliced almonds, and bake it again—what do you get? Pure magic. Croissant aux amandes is the answer to the age-old problem of slightly stale croissants, and honestly, it might be even better than the original. It also happens to be my husband’s favorite. So if I want to butter him up, excuse the pun, I know what to get him.

This genius pastry hack was created by French bakers as a way to revive unsold croissants, proving that the French waste nothing when it comes to good food. In some bakeries, you’ll spot pain aux amandes, which is basically the same idea but made with pain au chocolat instead. 

Chausson aux Pommes 

These are my other weekend indulgence. Pain au raisin on a Saturday and chausson aux pommes on a Sunday. Think of a flaky, golden pastry pocket because the word chausson means slipper, bursting with warm, cinnamon-spiced apple compote, and you’ve got a chausson aux pommes. Made with puff pastry, it’s folded over like a turnover and sealed around the edges before baking to crispy perfection. 

The chausson aux pommes has existed since at least the 17th century. Its origin is linked to Saint-Calais, a small town in the Loire Valley in the Sarthe region of France. Legend has it that during an epidemic in 1630, the Chatelaine of the village gave the starving townsfolk flour and apples, and with them, they made apple turnovers. There is even a festival dedicated to it, Fête du Chausson aux Pommes, celebrated on the first Sunday in September. It’s been happening for nearly 400 years.

Gâteau Basque 

Buttery, rich, and just the right amount of crumbly, Gâteau Basque is a pastry with a double life. At first glance, it looks like a simple round cake, but slice into it, and you’ll find one of two fillings: a creamy vanilla pastry cream or a sweet black cherry jam.

The dough is closer to a shortbread than a sponge, made with butter, eggs, sugar, and a hint of almond flour, giving it a beautifully crisp crust contrasting with the soft, rich filling. It’s traditionally marked with a crisscross pattern on top, making it easy to spot in any French pastry display.

It originated in Cambo-les-Bains in the 17th century when Basque women baked simple cakes at home. The earliest versions were made with cornmeal instead of wheat flour and had no filling, just a dense, slightly sweet pastry. It quickly became a Sunday tradition, served after mass as a special treat.

By the 19th century, a local woman named Marianne Hirigoyen began selling Gâteau Basque in Cambo-les-Bains, helping to establish it as a regional specialty. As its popularity grew, the cake became a symbol of Basque culinary heritage, with each family often having their own variation of the recipe.

Today, there’s even a museum in Sare dedicated to Gâteau Basque, where visitors can learn about its history and watch bakers at work. Every year, the region hosts a festival, The Gâteau Basque Festival, which is held on the first weekend in October. 

Chouquette

Light as air and impossible to eat just one, chouquettes are the little puffs of joy you never knew you needed. Made from choux pastry, they are baked until golden and crisp. Unlike éclairs or profiteroles, they’re not filled, but they are generously sprinkled with pearl sugar, which caramelizes slightly as they bake, giving them a subtle crunch. The best part? They’re sold by weight in French bakeries, meaning you can casually ask for “just a few” and still walk away with a paper bag full.

The origins of chouquettes go all the way back to the 16th century, when Italian chef Popelini, who worked in the court of Queen Catherine de’ Medici, created the first version of choux pastry. At the time, it was used for a denser, baked dough called pâte à chaud (literally “hot paste”), which evolved into the lighter, airier pâte à choux we know today. Over the centuries, choux pastry became the base for French pastry classics like éclairs, profiteroles, and croquembouche.

Kouign-Amann 

This Breton pastry is made from simple ingredients: flour, butter, sugar, and yeast, but the magic is in the technique. The dough is folded repeatedly with butter and sugar, creating layers that puff up beautifully while the sugar melts and caramelizes. The result? A pastry that’s crisp and caramelized on the outside, soft and buttery on the inside. The New York Times called it “the fattiest pastry in all of Europe.” 

Kouign-Amann comes from Brittany, specifically from the town of Douarnenez, where it was created in the 19th century. The name literally means “butter cake” in Breton, which tells you everything you need to know. It was invented by baker Yves-René Scordia around 1860 in the Finistère town of Douarnenez.

He had apparently almost run out of flour, although he had plenty of butter and sugar. With customers waiting to buy, he had to improvise, so he changed his recipe ratio to 30% butter, 30% sugar, & the rest flour, et voilà the Kouign Amann, was created.

Oranais 

Flaky, buttery, and filled with pastry cream and apricots, the Oranais is a pastry that doesn’t get nearly enough attention. Made from puff pastry, it’s folded into a diamond shape, cradling two halves of a juicy apricot with a generous layer of crème pâtissière underneath. The whole thing is baked until golden and then finished with a glossy glaze. 

The Oranais originated from Oran, Algeria, and the name is thought to refer to the apricots, which were historically grown in North Africa.

Viennoise au Chocolat

Somewhere between a brioche and a baguette, the viennoise au chocolat is the softer, sweeter cousin of traditional French bread, except this one comes stuffed with chocolate chips. Made from an enriched dough with butter, milk, sugar, and a touch of yeast, it has a tender, slightly chewy crumb and a lightly golden crust. Think of it as the French version of a chocolate chip bread roll.

Despite its name, the viennoise au chocolat doesn’t actually come from Vienna, but the baking style does. Like croissants and pain au chocolat, it’s part of the Viennoiserie family, inspired by Austrian baking traditions brought to France in the 19th century. 

Beignet 

Golden, pillowy, and covered in a dusting of powdered sugar, the beignet is France’s answer to the doughnut, only lighter, crispier, and dangerously addictive. Made from a simple yeasted dough, beignets are deep-fried until perfectly puffed and golden, then finished with sugar. Some are hollow inside, perfect for dunking into coffee or hot chocolate, while others are filled with pastry cream, jam, or even Nutella. 

Though they’re famous in New Orleans, beignets have deep French roots, dating back to the Middle Ages. Thanks to French colonists, they were a popular treat in French bakeries long before making their way to Louisiana. Beignets are often associated with Mardi Gras and Carnaval in France when bakeries churn out batch after batch. 

Each region has its own version, but the idea is the same: fried dough + sugar = pure happiness.

Mille Feuille

This is my husband’s other favorite, and it always seems to make its way onto the shopping list. Its name means “thousand sheets,” and with good reason. It’s made from three flaky, buttery puff pastry layers, with two layers of silky pastry cream (crème pâtissière) sandwiched in between. 

The top is traditionally glazed with either a dusting of powdered sugar or a signature white icing with chocolate marbling, creating that elegant, swirled pattern you’ll recognize from every good French pastry shop display. 

The mille-feuille dates back to at least the 17th century, with early versions appearing in French cookbooks. But it was in the 19th century that famed pastry chef Marie-Antoine Carême perfected the version we know today. In some parts of France, it’s also called Napoleon, though it has nothing to do with the emperor himself. 

Éclair

I remember seeing eclairs in the bakery where my mum worked for a while when I was young in the UK. I think we’ve all probably had an eclair at some point. They’ve been around since at least the 19th century, with their invention often credited to the famous pastry chef Marie-Antoine Carême (yes, the same guy who refined the mille-feuille). 

Originally called “pain à la duchesse,” it evolved into the éclair—French for “flash of lightning,” possibly because of how quickly people devour them. In France, you’ll also find mini éclairs called “éclairettes” or even savory versions filled with cheese or salmon mousse. But let’s be honest, the chocolate one will always be the star.

Madeleine

Small, shell-shaped, and perfectly buttery, Madeleines are little sponge cakes made from flour, butter, sugar, eggs, and a hint of lemon zest or vanilla, giving them their signature light, delicate flavor.

Madeleines have been around since at least the 18th century. The most famous tale credits a young maid named Madeleine Paulmier, who baked them for Stanislas Leszczyński, the exiled King of Poland living in Lorraine. He loved them so much that they became a royal favorite, eventually making their way to Versailles. 

But the real literary claim to fame? Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of Things Past,” where a single bite of a madeleine triggers a flood of childhood memories. That’s the power of a good pastry.

Cannele 

Dark, caramelized, and almost hypnotically glossy, the canelé is a small French pastry with a crisp outer shell and a soft, custardy center. Made from a thin batter of milk, eggs, sugar, flour, butter, and a splash of rum and vanilla, it’s baked in a special fluted copper mold, which gives it its signature ridged shape and deep golden-brown crust. 

The magic happens in the oven, where the batter transforms. The outside becomes crispy and almost chewy, while the inside stays soft, moist, and slightly wobbly, almost like a baked custard. The contrast of textures is what makes it so irresistible.

The canelé hails from Bordeaux, where it’s been around since at least the 18th century, possibly earlier. One theory is that it was created by nuns from the Convent of the Annonciades, who used leftover egg yolks donated by local winemakers (who only needed egg whites to clarify wine). 

Another version credits Bordeaux bakers for perfecting the caramelized crust we love today. Either way, this little pastry has a cult following. Fun fact? A properly made canelé takes hours to bake and requires beeswax in the molds for the perfect texture. 

Profiterole

I remember my mum and dad making profiteroles as dessert at their dinner parties. It was a real eighties thing in the UK. They date back to the 16th century, when they were introduced to France by Catherine de’ Medici’s Italian chefs.

The name comes from the Old French word “profitrolle,” meaning a small reward or treat. In some parts of France, they’re called “pets de nonne” (nun’s farts)—a completely different fried version, but I couldn’t help but laugh when I read that. Childish, I know, but it can’t be helped.

Macarons

Crisp on the outside, soft in the middle, and filled with ganache or buttercream, macarons are made from almond flour, egg whites, and sugar, then sandwiched together with flavors ranging from classic chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio to more adventurous ones like lavender, passion fruit, or salted caramel. 

Despite their deep ties to French patisserie, macarons actually have Italian origins. This is another tick for Catherine de’ Medici’s pastry chefs, as they were the ones to bring the macaron to France. However, it was refined in the 19th century by Parisian bakers and is more in line with what we know today. 

What is the most famous name in the macaron world? Ladurée, the legendary Parisian pastry shop that helped turn them into a global sensation. Fun fact? In France, there’s a difference between “macaron” and “macaroon”—the first is this elegant almond-based treat, while the second is a coconut-based cookie (delicious, but not the same thing!).

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