Best European Desserts You Must Try

Tarte Tatin

If you haven’t visited France, your closest experience with the famous French dessert Tarte Tatin may have been on MasterChef Australia or in Martha Stewart’s recipe book. This French favourite flips the traditional Puritan plain apple pie. The tatin shamelessly exhibits its wares, stickily caramelised and decadently buttery, on the outside—the modest base reduced to a mere vehicle for the apples in their sugary finery. Instead of gentle clouds of pleasantly tart fruit hidden behind a cosy blanket of biscuity dough. Always request a large dollop of the tart crème fraîche as well.

Gâteau Fondant au Chocolat

Looking out your window in Paris is more like looking at a Monet because of the stunning architecture and art as well as the amazing sunsets over the Seine. With that backdrop in mind, picture cutting into a warm round of gâteau fondant au chocolat, or, in English, “melting chocolate cake,” to let the interior slowly flood with chocolate. This rich, black cake is a test of temperature and time; serve it too soon and it turns into a sticky pool of hot cake batter; serve it too late and it turns into a brownie. The treat, however, combines the pleasure of a melted chocolate bar with the soft bite of a chocolate cake when the ratio is just right.

Pastéis de Nata

Imagine a pastry shell that is beautifully crunchy and flaky and is stuffed to the gills with a sweet, creamy custard. We don’t know what will make you blush and warm your heart more than that. It’s tough to stop at just one Pastéis de Nata, a typical Portuguese custard pastry, especially if you’re on vacation in Portugal. They are best served warm with a small dusting of cinnamon. Over three centuries ago, in Belem, these tiny treats were initially produced. Although the original recipe is still a mystery, nearly every bakery in Lisbon has attempted to duplicate it. However, each version has its own peculiarities and modifications that make it deserving of inclusion as one of the best sweets in the world.

Lemon Tart

A silky, zesty lemon custard with a buttery crust. That is all you need to make a Classic French Lemon Tart, an incredibly quintessential French delicacy. This traditional French tart is filled with a thin layer of lemon cream, which balances the flavour of the rich butter, the acidity of the lemon juice, and the sting of the lemon zest. The shortbread-like texture of the crust and the fatty crunch it preserves provide the perfect counterpoint to the velvety filling. The original French “Tarte au Citron” has no meringue and instead just lets the vibrant yellow filling shine. When done precisely, the outcome is dessert paradise.

Medovik

In Russia, medovik, or honey cake, has long been one of the most well-liked sweets. The thin layers of this cake are given a fragrant lilt by a small amount of honey. A soft cookie dough with a honey flavour that is covered with a frosting made of sour cream that has been delicately sweetened sits between the layers of cake, which can be layered up to ten layers high. The most common medovik variation has one of two very Russian ingredients in the sweet filling, however there are many other variations. Some people use the decadent sour cream that gives borscht and blini—two of Russia’s most savoury dishes—their distinctive flavours.

Gelato

Pizza and pasta are what come to mind when we think about Italy. However, when you tuck into a rich chocolate gelato or a crisp stracciatella, you can watch as your entire palate expands to take in the exploding dessert scene in the live art museum that is the world. Gelato, a denser variation of ice cream, is churned more slowly than ice cream and has a higher proportion of milk and a lesser amount of cream. You can be certain that these ‘artigianale,’ or hand-crafted, gelato creations are produced with only the freshest ingredients when you explore the world of gelato. You’ll discover that real, homemade banana gelato is white like the fruit itself, not yellow, in this article.

About Janis Hartmann