Fraisier

Fraisier is a French fresh pastry in which strawberries are sandwiched between baked sponge and cream. The cut faces of red strawberries line the sides, and white cream fills the spaces between them. The name fraisier means strawberry plant. To create this pattern on the sides, strawberries are first arranged along the inside of the mold, and cream is then filled in between them.

Fruit seen from outside, fruit enclosed within

First, a clear film is placed along the inside of the mold, and strawberries cut in half lengthwise are arranged with their cut faces turned outward. The fruit is aligned to an even height, and cream is piped between the pieces to fill the gaps. The sides are not made by attaching fruit to a finished cake; they are formed partway through layering the sponge and cream.

Cream and fruit are layered on the bottom layer of baked sponge, the top layer of sponge is placed on, the surface is smoothed, and the cake is chilled before the mold is removed. Whether whole strawberries are packed inside or cut small and scattered also changes the balance of fruit and cream in each slice. With either a round cercle or a square frame, the fruit at the edge and the fruit inside can be arranged separately.

It is also a pastry that makes use of locally grown fruit during strawberry season. Lenôtre’s 2026 Bagatelle combines the Charlotte variety, which holds its shape well, with the Mara des Bois variety, which has good flavor. Whether a variety helps the sides hold their shape, and how it tastes when eaten, serve as guides for choosing varieties. In addition to the work with the cream, the choice of fruit also affects the shape and flavor of the cake.

Creams made with butter or fresh cream

Classic crème mousseline is a cream made by adding butter to custard and incorporating air. It combines a softness that lets it spread around the fruit with enough firmness to be sliced once chilled. In some methods, the butter is added in two halves, one to the warm custard and one to the cooled custard; in others, a buttercream made in advance is combined with the custard.

Buttercream can be made by cooking egg yolks and milk, or by using a meringue prepared with hot sugar syrup, and the two differ in how the foam that is combined with the butter is made. In either case, if the custard and buttercream differ in temperature and their firmness does not match, they are difficult to bring together smoothly. If the custard is too hot, the butter melts; conversely, if the temperature difference is large, grains of butter remain and the mixture tends to separate. The custard is cooled with film pressed directly against it so that no skin forms on the surface, and the components are brought to the right condition before being combined. Combining them at matching temperature and firmness produces a cream with both the richness of butter and the lightness of incorporated air.

Crème diplomate, which combines whipped cream with custard, adds the airy softness of whipped cream. There are also versions that use a white chocolate and vanilla ganache montée. For this, hot cream and chocolate are emulsified little by little, cold cream is added, and the mixture is chilled for about a night to let its structure set before it is whipped. This way of making the cream layered with the strawberries differs both from simply whipping fresh cream and from a butter-based mousseline.

Some pastry chefs finely adjust the temperature of each component to suit the firmness of the cream. In Ryosuke Sugamata’s fraisier, the buttercream at 18–19°C and the custard at 14–15°C are combined, and pistachio paste is added. This approach adds a nutty aroma to the cream layered with the strawberries.

The spirit used to moisten the sponge is not limited to one, either. Sugamata’s method uses a syrup containing kirsch, while the Tsuji Culinary Institute method uses Grand Marnier to flavor the cream and the syrup. Even with the same strawberry cake, the aroma changes depending on the choice of the cream supporting the fruit and of the spirit.

Moistening the sponge and finishing the top

Fraisier is not only made with génoise moistened with syrup. Some versions use an almond sponge or a thinly baked lemon-scented madeleine batter. Moistening with fruit juice adds aroma and acidity, but soft sponges containing fat or almonds are sometimes finished without syrup. The overall softness of the cake varies with the type of cream and the moisture the sponge contains.

Placing a thin layer of marzipan on top makes the flat surface and the red fruit on the sides stand out. Other finishes include decorating with fruit compote, or spreading a thin layer of Italian meringue and browning it. Even when the shape and decorations change, the structure of enclosing fruit in cream and layering it with sponge remains the same.

The dome-shaped fraisier and Lenôtre’s Bagatelle

The name also carries a history of forms that differ from today’s. The “wild strawberry fraisier” that Pierre Lacam recorded in 1900 consisted of génoise moistened with a syrup containing Madeira, layered with wild strawberries and covered with a dome of whipped cream. Both its appearance and the way its ingredients were layered differ from today’s version, with its flat top and sides lined with cut fruit.

Meanwhile, the “Bagatelle,” which the Lenôtre lineage presents as a 1966 creation by Gaston Lenôtre, takes its name from a garden on the outskirts of Paris and combines an almond-based sponge, cream and strawberries. Even before then, as Lacam recorded, there were cakes made with strawberries. Pastries called fraisier have been made in many ways: from a dome shape covered in cream, to versions with cut fruit lined along the sides, and further to versions using lighter creams or meringue.

Glossary