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gateau basque

Desserts & pâtisserie

Gâteau Basque

By Steve Groves

Vanilla and orange perfume the smooth pastry cream inside Steve Groves's gâteau basque. Around it, a buttery golden crust gives each slice a tender edge, its simple diamond pattern marking the top. The pleasure is in that contrast between soft cake and cool, set cream. Cherry compote adds a bright, fruity accompaniment, though the cake is fragrant enough to serve by itself. Cut it once cool and share in generous slices.

Prep
Not stated
Cook
Not stated
Published total
1 hr 40 min
Serves8
Jump to recipe ↓Great British Chefs ↗

Ingredients

Gâteau mixture

Pastry cream

Egg wash

Optional serving accompaniment

Method

  1. Boil the 300 ml milk with orange zest and vanilla pod/seeds. Mix custard egg/yolk, sugar, flour and cornflour to a paste. Whisk in milk; return to pan, boil and simmer a few minutes, whisking.
  2. Sieve; press film onto the surface and chill.
  3. Sift cake flour/baking powder. Cream cake butter/sugar; beat in cake eggs individually, then flour mixture. Transfer to piping bag.
  4. Butter the 18 cm tin, paper-line its base and flour its sides.
  5. Pipe a gap-free base spiral and 2 cm wall. Fill with custard; cover with remaining mixture, piped spirally.
  6. Cover with film, smooth and chill 15 minutes. Heat oven to 180°C / 356°F.
  7. Brush with yolk/milk, fork-score diamonds and bake 45 minutes.
  8. Cool before unmoulding and slicing. Serve alone or with optional compote.

Equipment

18 cm / approximately 7.09 in springform cake tin; Saucepan; Whisk and mixing bowls; Fine sieve; Piping bag; Baking paper and cling film; Pastry brush and fork; Oven

Notes

  • Whisk the pastry cream continuously as it returns to the boil, then simmer for a few minutes to cook out the flour. Sieve it and press film directly onto the surface before chilling.
  • Prepare the 18 cm springform tin with melted butter, baking paper on the base and flour around the sides.
  • Seal the filling: pipe a complete base without gaps and raise the edge about two centimetres. After adding the cream, cover it with a spiral of the remaining mixture.
  • Smooth and chill: cover the assembled cake with film, smooth the surface and refrigerate for fifteen minutes before egg-washing and fork-scoring the diamonds.
  • Wait until cool before unmoulding. Slice only after removing the cooled cake from its tin.
  • Compote is optional: serve the cake plain or add fruit compote, with cherry particularly recommended. The fruit accompanies the pastry-cream filling.
  • Allow cooling time: the publisher gives one hour forty minutes overall, but does not state how long the pastry cream takes to chill or the baked cake to cool. The specified stages include fifteen minutes of assembled chilling and forty-five minutes in the oven.

Photos

2 photos
Gâteau BasqueFinished dishGolden gâteau BasqueGâteau BasqueServingA slice with cherry compote

Gâteau Basque

Recipe photos

About this dish

A cake for the Sunday family table, gâteau basque belongs to the Labourd in the French Basque Country. Pastry cream and black cherry jam are its two familiar fillings. This is the cream version, with Steve Groves adding vanilla and orange zest to the custard.

Historian Marcel Marc Douyrou tells its Cambo-les-Bains family story through Marianne Hirigoyen, a nineteenth-century pastry cook who inherited her mother's recipe. On Thursdays she took the diligence to Bayonne with baskets of cakes, then called gâteaux de Cambo. Her granddaughters Elisabeth and Anne Dibar continued the business and became known as the sisters Biskotx, keepers of the family recipe. Before her death, Anne passed the secret to a local pastry cook, keeping that inheritance alive beyond the family.

Groves encloses his cooked, chilled cream in a soft mixture that can be piped. A spiral forms the base, a raised edge contains the filling and a second spiral closes the top. Egg wash gives it a golden finish; a fork supplies the diamonds. Cherry compote brings the region's familiar fruit pairing to the side of the plate.

Recipe and cooking notes adapted from Great British Chefs.