Tarte Tropézienne

Actually I have a plan to post another cake, but as last weekend my niece with her kids from Melbourne came to my studio, spent whole day at my place to learn from making the baguette to croissant…and even tarte Tropézienne. As kids love the tarte so much so I’d like to share how to do it with you.

What’s tarte Tropézienne? It’s actually a brioche filled with some cream. And why Tropézienne? As I found this cake has been invented by some pastry chef from Poland, Alexandre Micka, when he came to settle down in Provence – South of France by the end of WWII.

Later Alexandre Micka opened a pastry shop in a famous resort town Saint-Tropéz. Among another typical French pastries, Alexandre Micka also made a cream pie, from a recipe originally from his native Poland, a recipe of his maternal grandmother. In 1955, Alexandre Micka got a chance to provide the meal for a film crew of Roger Vadim when they did filming “…And God Created Woman” with Jean-Louis Trintignant and Brigitte Bardot. The French actress, Brigitte Bardot, fell in love with the cream pie so much, so she recommended to give some name – and by some how the name “Tarte Tropézienne” was registered for this cake.

I have no idea about the original recipe from Poland, but the tarte Tropézienne is a combination of popular French brioche with the mascarpone cream.

Step 1   Preparation for brioche dough 

• Bread flour  500 gr.
• Egg  6 pcs
• Dry yeast  3 gr.
• Fermented dough  60 gr.
• Sugar  60 gr.
• Salt  10 gr.
• Butter  250 gr.
• Vanilla extract  10 ml.
• Lemon zest  10-20 gr.

Kneading all together for about 25′ until the dough stops sticking to the bowl. Keep in the fridge over night. Next day make a brioche dough into small balls or one or two bigger balls, put them in the rings in order to keep the round shape during baking. Don’t forget to do the egg wash and let’s the dough to rest for 2 hours. Bake at 170°C for 20-25 minutes.

While the brioche is resting we can prepare the cream. There are several ways to make the cream for this cake, either to mix the crème patissiere (pastry cream) with mascarpone then with whipped cream, but as we prefer something lighter, so we decided just to mix well the mascarpone with cream Chantilly (whipped cream with sugar and vanilla). The kids loved the cream so much so they were ready to eat only the leftover cream right from the piping bag!

Step 2   Preparation for mascarpone cream 

• Mascarpone  250 gr.
• Whipping cream 200 ml
• Sugar  50 gr.
• Vanilla  5 ml.

Mix the mascarpone with the well-whipped cream, or as we call it by another name – crème Chantilly, keep it in the fridge when the brioche is cooling down.

Finally we cut the brioche into two: top and bottom and filled with the cream in the middle. Then spray the powder sugar on the top surface! And voilà the Tarte Tropézienne – one of the legendary French actress’s sweets favorites!