Why I moved to France for the cake – and learned to love British baking

When I tell people I moved to France for the cake it sounds facetious. In truth, we came for the attractively priced property (€19,000, in this case). 

But when that dream started to come crashing down around us, somewhat literally, a big factor in not giving too much of a damn was the fact that, by then, we had discovered a great patisserie.

Every Saturday we made the pilgrimage – an apposite word because at that time I was quite into their religieuses – a small round pastry filled with chocolate or coffee crème pâtissière, stacked on a slightly larger one, filled exactly the same. 

The name means ‘nun’ but with their bowlcut ‘hair’ of ganache on top, and the white ruff of cream holding the two balls together, they look like squat choristers and still make my heart sing every time I see one.

While it would be quite acceptable to worship exclusively at the chou altar in France, I confess my sweet tooth swiftly moved more ‘high church’. By which I mean anything presented as a glossy hemisphere. 

Stuff your Hagia Sophia or St. Peter's Basilica – for a good few years the only domes I felt truly moved by were mirror glazed and multi-layered with mousse and genoise sponge. 

I liked the structure of the bakes and the bombast of the little cards describing their components. I haunted the sort of haute-pastry establishments that produced catalogues of their A/W and S/S collections. 

I splurged on a Pierre Hermé cookbook of such sophisticated paper engineering that the recipes are illustrated by towering 3D pop-ups rather than conventional photographs. And I became deeply ashamed of my own cake culture by comparison, of which 'National Trust tea-room’ seemed the zenith.

Read more: discover France's summer cheese and a sweet teatime delight

Last summer something shifted. I organised a pop-up café with a friend in the village to raise money for a local association. 

She vowed to take care of publicity; I promised a table of slightly wonky Victoria sponges, lemon drizzles, flapjacks and a carrot cake. I was too embarrassed to put prices on them so we decided to go prix libre and see what happened.

What happened was we raised over €1,000. Much more surprising was that people seemed genuinely enraptured by the spread. They found a bravura in the gingerbread I had never given black treacle credit for; and dignified sloshing whisky over fruitcake by demanding precise details of best spirit brands and feeding schedules. 

It made me dizzy and happy and, for the first time, proud of the British baking tradition of comfort and jamminess and just having a go.

Other pop-up cafés have followed and been similarly lovely. And as my confidence in English tea-time fare has grown, so have the scales fallen from my eyes when it comes to some French gateaux too. 

Sophistication, I now realise, is not across the board. Lyon speciality la praluline (a brioche studded with rose sugar-coated pralines) is, though undeniably delicious, visually a bit like eating acne. 

And as we inch closer to Epiphany, let us not forget that greatest crime against French patisserie: the leaden galette des rois. Don’t be fooled by the ’king’ in its name: any dessert that relies solely on cheap gimmicks (a hide-and-seek fève) to get on your plate risks losing France its cake-y crown altogether.