Basque cake revisited for diabetics.

By Mélanie Mercier, dietician-nutritionist

The dough

.150g T55 flour

100g of cornstarch
120g cane sugar
100g lighter margarine with omega 3
3 eggs
25cl of almond milk
2 vanilla pods
2cl of rum
The cream by thrilling the milk with a split vanilla pod and "scratched". In a bowl, beat 2 eggs, add 70 g of sugar and bleach. Add 50 g of flour.
Carbohydrate equivalence:
1 share = 200 g of cooked pasta or potatoes = 80 g of bread

Let yourself be carried away by the flavors of the Basque Country with these recipes! This treasure of the Basque heritage, simple to prepare and quick to cook, it reveals a melting heart and a slightly irresistible crisp paste. A pure moment of comfort to savor without moderation. We eat, good appetite.

My recipe

General normations
• Portions: 6 to 8 parts
• Preparation time: 40 minutes
• Cooking time: 30 minutes
• Oven temperature: 180 ° C (thermostat 6)
Ingredients
for sweet dough
• 200 g of fine butter 82% mg
• 200 g of crystallized sugar
• 4 egg yolks + 2 whole eggs
• 400 g of Farine T55
• 3 g of fine salt
• 1/2 g)
For pastry cream
• 500 ml of whole milk
• 2 egg yolks + 1 whole egg
• 120 g of crystallized sugar
• 50 g of T55 flour
• 1/2 vanilla clove
• 20 g of amber rum 55 ° (essential!)
For finish
• 1 whole egg to brown
preparation
1. Prepare the sweet dough
1. In a salad bowl, mix the sugar and salt
2. The eggs and mix well
3. Incorporate the flour and the previously sifted yeast
4. Form a ball of homogeneous and non -sticky dough
5. Wrap in a cling film and set aside in the refrigerator for 30 minutes
2. Prepare the pastry cream
1. Boil the milk with the split vanilla pod in two
. In a bowl, whiten the sugar with the egg yolks and the whole egg
3. Little sugar with the flour to avoid lumps
4. Pour half of the boiling milk over the egg-sucking mixture by whisking vigorously
5. Put everything back into the pan with the rest of the milk
6. Return to medium heat, stirring constantly until thickening

7.
Remove from the heat, add the rum
8. Pour in a bowl, film in contact and let cool
3. Cut 2 discs 2. Place the first disc in the bottom of the mold
3. Garnish with pastry cream, stopping at 2 cm from the edge
4. Cover with the second disc and weld the edges
5. Brown the surface with a brush with the beaten egg
6. Bake at 180 ° C for 30 minutes until you get a beautiful golden color
7. Leave to cool completely before unmolding and enjoying
advice:
• Leave it to be used.
• Keeps 2-3 days for the cream a little more for the cherry.

Pablo Gicquel recipe

The Basque cake

Ambassador of French Gastronomy as a UNESCO World Heritage Site

A gastronomic heritage recognized worldwide
since November 2010, French gastronomy has entered Unesco heritage (more precisely, to the intangible cultural heritage of humanity), marking exceptional international recognition of French culinary art. This registration does not only concern emblematic dishes, but all of the cultural practices surrounding the French meal.
The Basque cake: a nugget of the French terroir
in the heart of this gastronomic richness recognized by UNESCO, the Basque cake occupies a place of choice. This traditional pastry, born in the French Basque Country, perfectly embodies the values that have earned this distinction to France: the authenticity of local products, the transmission of ancestral skills and the art of French living.
The essence of intangible heritage
This category, created in 2003, aims to protect traditional cultural and know-how practices. The Basque cake fits perfectly into this approach: its traditional recipe, transmitted from generation to generation, represents a unique culinary know-how which forges the cultural identity of the Basque Country.
A symbol of cultural diversity
according to UNESCO experts, French cuisine therefore strengthens the collective identity of the country and contributes to the cultural diversity of the world. The Basque cake perfectly illustrates this regional diversity which makes the richness of French gastronomy. Each region brings its stone to the national culinary building, and the Basque Country, by its specialties like this emblematic cake, fully participates in this taste mosaic.
More than a pastry: an art of living
in 2010, UNESCO distinguishes “French gastronomy” in the sense of “French meal”, this moment of conviviality around a table where quality dishes are divided. The Basque cake is part of this tradition: it is much more than a simple pastry, it is a moment of family sharing, often prepared for special occasions, embodying the spirit of conviviality dear to French culture.
A heritage responsibility
as an integral part of the French gastronomy recognized by UNESCO, the Basque cake carries a responsibility: that of perpetuating authentic culinary traditions in the face of global food standardization. Each cake made according to the traditional recipe - with its shortbread dough, its rum flavored pastry cream and its golden gilding - helps preserve this intangible heritage for future generations.
Conclusion: a living heritage
are elements that generations are transmitted and which provides each country with a feeling of particular continuity and identity. The Basque cake, as an ambassador of French gastronomy as a UNESCO World Heritage, reminds us of the importance of preserving and transmitting our culinary traditions. He is the witness of a French living art that transcends borders and is now part of the common heritage of humanity.
To taste an authentic Basque cake is therefore to participate in the preservation of a world heritage, to honor centuries of culinary tradition and to celebrate cultural diversity which makes the richness of our world.

Discover the history of this heritage cake of a country.

I hesitated for a long time, why write on the Basque cake?

But after a lot of years, I accumulated stories, scraps of conversations heard in kitchens, recipes gleaned over the years, secrets and manufacturing tips transmitted by passionate craftsmen. All of this may deserve to be simply posed.

What I would like to tell it will not be a learned manual, just a souvenir book. Simple moments:

-A Amatxi who kneads his dough on Sunday morning.

- An oven that smells of cream with these vanilla and rum fragrances.

- Variations from one recipe to another.

- A recipe that went wrong, but a result !!!!!!!!

Nothing more, maybe someone, one day, will find in these pages an echo of our traditions. Or maybe it will only be a gift to my own memory.

Tradition.
This word has no packaging.
It cooks in the houses.
It smells of black cherry or soft cream.
Not pistachio, not speculoos.

Tradition is the silence of an oven that speaks more than any window.

When you touch the soul, you end up erasing it.

The Basque cake - 'crust heritage' ”

It is not a simple dessert. It is a manifesto. A pastry vestige of resistance. A dense structure, voluntarily rustic, which rises against the frivolous lightness of mosses and espumas.

Under the golden crust - almost toasted, like a childhood memory forgotten in the oven for a minute too much - a dual texture: crisp on the surface, honeyly melting with heart. The dough? A hybrid: compacted shortbread, almost architectural, but which melts under the language as a well -kept secret. Butter, egg, sugar - but here, reconciled, not mixed. There is a tension between the solidity of the terroir and the smoothness of a home.

In the center, a dense, almost candied pastry cream, with vanilla scents (or a black cherry tree, for those who dare the heretical version). She is not there to flatter. She anchors. She connects. She recalls that the Basque cake is not a dessert: it is a edible topography. Basque cartography. A peasant burned cream imprisoned in a rebellious pie.

Taste? Caramelized but never sweet. Kidy but never dry. Familiar, and yet unclassifiable. This is the point of convergence between the heat of a flan and the firmness of a smuggling cookie. If one day, a pie decided to become sovereign, it would be Basque cake.

The Basque cake appears for the first time in the journal written by Curnonsky, France at the table , one edition of which was devoted to the Basque Coast in 1936. However, it is only mentioned very quickly under the name of Pastiza , deformation of the Gascon Pastis which meant "the pâté or the pie" sweet or salty, in the inventory that Curnonsky of the regional specialties of the Basque Côte.

It was not until the 1950s that the Basque cake really appeared in regional cooking books and that part was exclusively reserved for it. Thus, Curnonsky dedicates this time to him an entire page accompanied by the recipe and a photograph in his cookbook recipes and landscapes. Sud-Ouest and Pyrénées , as well as Bayonne chocolate, Biscayenne cod, or piperade accompanied by his Bayonne ham. In 1958, it was René Cuzacq's turn to evoke the Basque cake in his work, without praising it.