Pithiviers

The pastry takes its name from Pithiviers in the Loiret, in the Centre-Val de Loire. The puff-pastry, frangipane-filled form is the one known today; its rise is bound up with the invention of feuilletage (puff pastry), traditionally credited to the 17th century, though the exact inventor is disputed and the story is more legend than record. An older, separate cake from the same town, the Pithiviers fondant, is a glazed almond cake rather than a puff pie, and some accounts trace an almond-and-wheat ancestor to antiquity — claims that are folkloric and not documented. A Confrérie de l'Authentique Pithiviers, founded in 1983, sets standards for the traditional version.

The crust is the showpiece — a tall, burnished dome that shatters into buttery flakes, the scored rays crisping into ridges. Below it the frangipane is dense, moist and intensely almond, just set, neither runny nor cakey. Warm, the almond and butter aromas lift; the contrast of crackling pastry against soft, sweet filling is the whole point. Sometimes a coin or bean is hidden inside, as in the kings' cake.

Two techniques meet here. The pastry is laminated puff dough: a butter block folded through repeated turns into hundreds of fat-and-dough layers that steam apart in the oven for the towering rise — butter kept cool throughout so it sheets rather than melts in. The filling is frangipane, almond cream (ground almonds, butter, sugar, egg) often enriched with a little crème pâtissière; it must be piped within the sealed edge so steam pressure doesn't blow the pie open. Sealing and a couple of vent holes balance lift against burst, while the egg glaze and scored top give the lacquered, rayed finish.