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Flick the pages of the Larousse Gastronomique, the French food bible, and you’ll find hundreds of entries for cakes, some world-famous, but many that are more obscure. One of the latter is gâteau nantais, a regional cake with Caribbean influences.
French chef and author Gabriel Gaté explains that gâteau nantais is like a , or , made with equal amounts of butter, flour, egg, and sugar. But it sees part of the flour replaced with almond meal, and rum added to the batter. It’s also sometimes flavoured with orange or lemon zest, as well as vanilla. Once cooked, the cake can be doused in a rum syrup. Then, more rum is mixed with sugar to make a white icing.
The result is a dense and moist pound cake, fragrant, with depth brought by the rum.
When the cake is served to kids, rum can be replaced with orange juice, lemon juice or orange blossom water.
Credit: Blink TV
A cake for travellers…
Nantes, which is now part of the Loire region, used to be the capital of Brittany. It’s one of the oldest and most important ports of France, which has a . In the 18th century, triangular trade brought ingredients like cane sugar, vanilla and rum from the Caribbean to Nantes.
It’s believed a local baker used these ingredients to hence how it was . The nickname can also be attributed to the long shelf life of the cake, and how .
First served as a high-end dessert at home, gâteau nantais was forgotten, then in the 20th century.
And for families
While you can find gâteau nantais in cafes and bakeries around Nantes, locals tend to make and eat it at home.
“It’s really a family cake; it’s easy to make. You only have to mix the ingredients, put them in your cake pan, cook the cake and make the icing. No need to make a meringue or a cream; it’s so simple!” says Gaté, who grew up in the Loire Valley. “In our region, if somebody was coming over during the day, you’d serve that cake, sometimes with a glass of sweet white wine or a glass of Champagne.”
Gâteau nantais is also synonym with afternoon treat for Fleidel: “It’s the type of cake you’d have at home when you come back from school. You’d sit down at four o’clock with a hot chocolate and a little cake,” he says, remembering the .
And no matter how you aromatise your gâteau nantais, consider baking it a day before serving it to ensure all the flavours fully infuse the cake.
Get the recipe
Gâteau Nantais
