Le Russe a unique French Cake from South of France, that even Parisians do not know about!
Le “Russe” is my husband’s favorite cake. The one he was eating with his grandma in a tea salon while in Luchon (Pyreneas) when he was a little boy. And it has been a ritual for him to have a “Russe” as a birthday Cake until we left for the States. This ca ke is very local, from the South of France so there is no way you can find it in Paris, Marseille, London, or New York.
So this year I decided to suprise him, in making a “russe” for his birthday.
It is very easy to make. And the reward is there, every bite is delicious.
The mixture of almond, halzenut, cream, meringue is unique.
While searching for the recipe I found a lovely Blog, sorry it is in French but you can translate with with google, translate tool.
Here it was they said about the Russe cake:
In 1925, a Bearnais ARTIGARREDE Adrian opened his first pastry shop in the Sainte-Marie OLORON and made its first “Russian” based from the nineteenth century recipe with a little twist … the fruit of his imagination will make this cake unique. The little secret was more than one state is passed down from generation to generation.
The “Russian”, why this name? Its basic component is the almond imported from the Crimea. The shape of this delicious cake take us towards the snowy plains of Russia
The motto of the pastry shop: “At OLORON STE MARIE, I eat … the true Russian!”
This wonder is moving fans, we know from London to the West Indies …
Where to find?
OLORON: Pastry ARTIGARREDE, 1 Cathedral Square, France tel. 0559390138
PAU: Pastry ARTIGARREDE, 3 rue Gassion, France tél.0559274740
SAINT JEAN DE LUZ: VENTA DONIBANEKO, 94 rue Gambetta, France Tel. 0559263802
Le Russe Cake
• For the almond– meringue cookie
• 5 tbsp Almond meal
• 5 tbsp Powder sugar
• 2 tbsp flour
• 5 white eggs
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 1 pinch salt
• For the halzebut cream
• 1 C heavy Cream
• ½ cup sugar
• 10 tsp soft butter
• 1 C raw Halzenut
• ½ cup sugar
• Topping
• Powder sugar
Preheat the oven at 285 F
In a large and deep bowl, mix the almond meal, powdered sugar, and flour. Set aside.
Beat the white eggs with salt then add the sugar and beat until they are very firm. Little by little with a spatula mix the almond/sugar/flour into the white eggs beaten. Be gentle trying no to break the white eggs.
Cover the cookie sheet with parchment paper and spread on it a thin layer of the mixture. Bake for 15 minutes. The cookie must be soft. Set aside to cool.
In a food processor powder the Hazelnuts. In a saucepan add the Hazelnuts then the sugar and cook it until you have a soft paste. Do not overcook. Set aside to cool completely.
In mixer beat the cold heavy Cream with sugar.
Mix gently the soft butter with the hazelnut/sugar cooked mixture then add the heavy cream.
Mix well everything.
Cut the Almond-Meringue Cookie in 2 equal squares. Crush the extra ( you will use later as topping) In the serving plate place the first square, then spread the butter/cream/ hazelnut mixture, top it with the second square, then again spread the cream.
Top the cake with crushed almond-meringue cookie then cover with a lot of powered sugar.
Put in the fridge for 24 hours ( if you can resist). Take it off from the fridge 5- 10 minutes before eating.
kourtney moon
oh my gosh!!! i was in the south of france a few weeks ago and i had this cake. my “baby daddy” loves this and grew up in pau and told me how amazing it was. i tried and wasn’t disappointed. there are other desserts that are unique to that region that i tried and LOVED.
i am back home in the USA now and asked my chef (i’m in pastry school) if he knew about russe, since he worked with a french pastry chef for years. he mentioned the charlotte ruse cake, which is totally different. i can’t wait to make this and see if i can measure up!!! i went to the Pastry ARTIGARREDE before i left: heavenly.
Julie
Thank you for this recipe! We just got back from southern France visiting family and while there, Russe became my favorite dessert. The bakery in Oloron makes famously good Russe.
admin
Thank you Julie I am glad you love Russe cakes too. Thanks for the comment. I hope you like all my recipes on my blog, you can also follow my cooking adventure on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/celines.cuisine and do not forget to check my cookbook “Pack a Lunch” with a lot of French recipes that will remind your trip to South of France. A bientot.
Jay
Do you have the approximate dimensions of the pan used to bake the cookie? A small cookie sheet? Or a half sheet pan?
Clair Wieder
Thanks, very interesting. I was born in Russia in 1975 but my parents fled the country and settled here in the UK. Truthfully, I didnt really care much about my russian history until my mother died last month, now I’ve been trying to find out as much as I can. Seemed like the food was as good a place as any to start ! You dont generally hear much about russian cooking do you? Anyway, I found a lot of russian recipes here that your readers might be interested in too.
Joel
THANK YOU my love!
Memories usually tend to get better with age, and we are talking about a cake I fell deeply in love with approx. 35 years ago. So the odds of baking a “russe” matching the taste of that very first one were very slim to say the least, but YOU DID IT!
This cake literally transported me back in time and reconnected me to my late, beloved grandmother. She was so fond of this cake, she quickly made it a habit to buy one every single day during the 3 weeks of our summer vacation… We had found this pastry shop along the main shopping street in Luchon (in the French Pyrennees) on the very first day, while walking back to our hotel after the first morning of treatment at the warm waters spa.
We both instantly became addicted. This cake was so good we actually bought 2 more slices each on that very first day. My grandmother was probably the sweetest tooth I have ever met (followed very closely by my mother and sister), and she looked like she just had found her grail, after looking for it for more than 70 years! She simply could not get enough. Forget about diet, cholesterol, blood sugar, and the whole healthy eating thing, she could not even think when she was passing by this pastry shop. And I must say that neither could I!
This cake actually became a reason to get out of our naps and go for a walk in the long and lazy summer afternoons. Maybe I should say “little” walks, because our hotel could not have been more than half a mile from the Pastry Shop, and I don’t think we ever found a good enough incentive to keep walking beyond the shop after stopping by to indulge.
Likewise, watching our kids eating the russe in silence 35 years later, licking their fingers and probably wishing they had a spare mouth made me wonder if they too would remember this day for 35 years. I sure wish they will! Smell and taste create strong, long lasting, beautiful memories. Unlike visual impressions, they simply don’t fade with age.
So thank you for bringing that one back. Now I’ll need MORE, MORE, MORE!
PS: To Dianne, yes I am French too and I enjoy cooking as well (once in a while). But I enjoy eating even more. And with Celine in the kitchen, I must say I am a very happy husband.
Virginia
1. Your photos are eatable…
2. What a delicious sounding cake. YUM!!!
catie
ooh-la-la!
celine!! i must try le russe!
merci,
catie
LadyEM
I am wheat free, but I could easily replace the 2 tbsp of flour with one of my other flours. This looks so good. I love anything with almonds or hazelnuts!!
admin
@Diane yes salt is very important for cake, just a little tiny pinch is necessary.
martha
THIS looks positively scrumptious-my mouth is absolutely watering Celine!! And mag worthy photos here! LOVE this…oh yum!
Dianne
With such delicious ingredients how could it be bad? Oh my gosh looks so good!!!! Celine is your husband French too?
I have a question…if a cake recipe calls for salt and you leave it out will it ruin the cake? My husband is on very low sodium.
Thank you.