French Religious Cakes

Patisserie Religieuse

These wonderful little religious cakes called Patisserie Religieuse in France, are made of choux pastry or pate chou.

They are really just cream puffs, consisting of one larger one on the bottom with a smaller one on the top.

The name Religieuse originally came from the violet color of the Cardinal's robes. Today they are often made in pink with rose flavored icing and filling, chocolate flavored, coffee flavor or anything you like.

If you have seen them in the shops in Paris you will know how gorgeous they are.

I only wish my cakes could live up to the ones in Laduree's in Paris. You can see what I mean if you take a peep over at their website – they are fabulous.

However, this is home cooking and so we will be forgiven for not being quite as professional but I can assure you they will be absolutely gorgeous.

Religious Cakes Recipe

Method

You will need to make your choux pastry.

When you have made your choux pastry, spoon it out onto a buttered baking tray and bake until golden brown as in the recipe for the choux pastry.

Make some bigger and some smaller for the tops. Perhaps using a dessert spoon for the bottoms and a teaspoon for the tops.

When they have been made, allow to cool before filling your creme patissiere with the flavor of your choice.

Make The Filling:

Make some custard filling called Creme Patissiere.

When the crème patisserie has cooled down, flavor it with a few drops of rose water and a drop of pink coloring and simply fill your puffs with the cream.

If using chocolate flavor you can add cocoa powder or melted dark chocolate.

For the coffee, make some coffee and allow to go cold. Add this to your cream filling.
 
For the icing simply add your flavor and color to some icing sugar with a few drops of water. Mix until you have the right consistency which should be nice and thick but not too dry as you need to either spread it on your buns, or dip your buns in it or drizzle it on your buns.

When it has set, pipe some icing between the two buns.

When the icing has dried your lovely Religious cakes are ready to eat!

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