Bakery Window · Filled Shortcrust Cake
Gâteau Basque
Photo: Asturio Cantabrio / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
There are really only two accepted fillings — pastry cream or black cherry jam — and locals treat swapping them for anything else as close to sacrilege.
Gâteau Basque is a round, thick-crusted cake with a shortbread-like exterior hiding a filling of either vanilla pastry cream or Itxassou black cherry jam, sold whole or by the slice at bakery counters throughout the French Basque Country.
Why it's made this way: It developed in Basque farmhouse kitchens as a way to use cherries and milk from the land, becoming the region's signature festival and market cake.
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