List of 65 recipes using Icing sugar (without meat)

Amaretti

Amaretti are little Italian almond biscuits. They are a bit like meringues, very sweet, and made with ground almonds.

Amaretti almonds and lemon

These delicious little Italian cookies, both soft and crunchy, with their almond and lemon flavour, will delight you.

Amiens macaroons

These macaroons, famous since the 16^th century, are small, soft almond-flavoured cakes. This recipe is much easier to make than the one for the classic Parisian macarons.

Ardéchois

Ardéchois is a deliciously moist regional cake with chestnut cream.

Arizona cupcakes

Cupcakes are small sponge cakes. In their original American version, they are usually decorated with brightly coloured icing. Here's a version inspired by the famous saguaro cactus, so common in Arizona.

Arlesian Biscuits

These small almond and lemon-flavoured biscuits have a short, melt-in-the-mouth texture. They are known as "sablés arlésiens" in French.

Brioche slices with almond cream

A brioche slice, soaked in rum syrup and covered with almond cream, then browned in the oven. It's a dessert, and also a pastry which goes very well with tea or coffee at the end of the afternoon, especially when it's cold outside.

Calissons

Calissons are a sweet from Provence - Aix-en-Provence is famous for them - made with almonds and candied fruit, covered with royal icing. This is a slightly simplified version, which is every bit as good.

Chocolate almond cookies

Cookies made with ground almonds, chocolate chips and a little cocoa.

Chocolate madeleines

Simple and delicious, goes very well with tea or coffee.

Cigarettes Russes (Piroulines)

The French name for these tubular biscuits means "Russian cigarettes". Cigarettes Russes are perfect for serving with ice cream or other desserts. The basic biscuit is fairly easy to make; the tricky bit is rolling the tube once cooked.

Coconut "croute à thé"

Here's a coconut version of the classic French "croute à thé" cake. The double coconut flavour comes from the sweetcrust pastry as well as the filling.

Coconut tuiles

Delicate tuiles with coconut. Very thin, they are both crunchy and melt-in-the-mouth. Delicious on their own or to accompany an ice-cream or cream dessert, perhaps a sophisticated one like coconut-vanilla cream for Elsa .

Coffee croquants

The croquants, those delicious little cookies so crunchy that live up to their name, are here in a hazelnut-almond coffee version.

Croute à thé

Under this strange name (literally "crust for tea") there hides a delicious cake in crusty sweet pastry, filled with a smooth almond mixture and icing sugar on top. It's an excellent cake for tea time, but it goes very well with fruit salad for example.

Diamond biscuits

These round biscuits no doubt get their name from the coating of sparkling sugar crystals around the edge.

Finger biscuits

These small biscuits, that look a bit like savoy biscuits, are delicious alone or with Champagne, but are also the base for charlottes or Tiramisu.

Gâteau Nantais

This traditional cake from the French city of Nantes is deliciously moist, flavoured with almonds, vanilla and rum. For the finishing touch, the top is covered with boozy white icing.

Half-cooked chocolate cake with raspberry coulis

A small chocolate cake, still runny in the middle, served with a raspberry coulis.

Hazelnut and cocoa amaretti

You may already be familiar with almond and lemon amaretti, so here's an equally delicious hazelnut and cocoa version, with a simplified recipe.

Hazelnut and orange cake

A very elegant cake topped with a sprinkling of hazelnut crumble, and with a double helping of orange flavour from chopped candied peel and the orange syrup soaked into the cake after cooking. The recipe is rather sophisticated, inspired by those used by pastry cooks at the INBP. It is a bit trickier than a basic cake, but the result is well worth it.

Jam doughnuts

These were originally a traditional German treat (Berliner Pfannkuchen in German): big fried doughnuts filled with jam and sprinkled with icing sugar.

Linzer torte

Linzer torte, or tart from Linz (Austria), has a cinnamon-flavoured crust filled with raspberry jam. The special and rather crumbly sweet pastry used for the case is made with cinnamon, ground almonds and the yolks of hard-boiled eggs. There are many different versions. In this rather unusual one, inspired by Gaston Lenôtre, the raspberry jam is mixed with a little tart (in the other sense!) stewed apple.

Little Christmas biscuits

These little chocolate biscuits are decorated with marzipan. They are ideal to accompany a festive dessert.

Macarons (the original French macaroons)

This recipe really is "of the moment": the success of these small, highly-coloured cakes, in an infinite variety of flavours, is impressive. It's a recipe which needs some care, in order to produce a result worthy of a professional pastrychef. No problem, I will guide you through the recipe, particularly the tricky parts. This variety of flavours means that I test many alternatives, so don't be surprised if in the pictures the colour of the macarons changes, I used the best photograph available...

Millefeuille

Millefeuille is one of the best pastries available, if it is well made, i.e.: 2 layers of light vanilla cream between 3 layers of fine crispy (possibly caramelized) puff pastry.

Mini lemon millefeuilles

These dainty and delicious mini millefeuilles have layers of puff pastry filled with lemon confectioner's custard (pastry cream). They are a bit tricky because they are quite fragile and do not keep well once assembled. But freshly made, they are a true delight.

Mirlitons

Mirlitons are little puff-pastry tarts with an almond cream filling.

Mirlitons of Guipavas

You may already be familiar with mirlitons, a delicious little bakery pastry made from puff pastry and almond cream, but here are the mirlitons from Guipavas, which are even more delicious because they're made from croissant dough.

Moist Lemon Cake

This is similar to the basic "four quarters" cake, but with the delicious double lemon flavour that comes from using both zest and juice.

Nanou's chocolate cake

A moist melting cake, very very chocolaty...

Oat financiers for Louise

These moist little petit-four cakes are called 'financiers' in French, as they are similar in shape to gold ingots! They go very well with tea or coffee. In this version, the usual ground almonds are replaced with rolled oats, blended to a powdery texture.

Paris-Brest

The Paris-Brest is a famous French patisserie: a ring of choux pastry, scattered with flaked almonds and icing sugar and filled with a praline cream. The name comes from a historic cycle race between Paris and Brest (600 km or 372 miles), as the shape is like a bicycle wheel.

Pink Reims biscuits

These biscuits are a speciality of Reims. They have a light texture, rather like finger biscuits, and are traditionally rectangular and coloured pink.

Pistachio "Financiers"

This version of the traditional French financiers is just as moist as the original but with a delicious pistachio flavour.

Pistachio madeleines

Firm on the outside, soft in the centre and with a prominent pistachio flavour, these madeleines are truly delicious.

Roasted pears and verbena mascarpone mousse

This recipe features a double dose of verbena: the pears are roasted with sprigs of verbena—you’ll see, the pear-verbena pairing is a real winner—and the mascarpone cream, in which the cream itself is also infused with verbena.

Saint Honoré cake

The Saint Honoré cake is a famous example of French patisserie. It consists of a puff pastry base surrounded by a ring of caramel-coated choux puffs and topped with whipped cream (Chantilly). It is a bit tricky to make, but this recipe gives you all the hints you need.

Santiago Cake

Santiago cake (or Torta de Santiago) has a lovely moist texture. It is made with almonds and lemon and contains no butter or flour. This Spanish speciality from Galicia is still often decorated with the cross of St James.

Sicilian Epiphany Pie

This is a Sicilian version of the French Epiphany dessert, the "galette des rois". The puff pastry has a pistachio cream and ricotta filling with diced candied fruit.

Soft apple and almond cake

This light and fluffy apple and almond cake is a pure delight. The apples, baked separately, are placed on top of the pastry, then covered with macaroonade, for a moist yet crisp result you'll love.

Stuffed prunes

Stuffed prunes are a sweetmeat made with halved dried prunes sandwiched together around a morsel of marzipan flavoured with Armagnac.

Succès praliné (praline meringue)

The "succès" (success) is a classic of traditional French patisserie, made with two layers of almond meringue filled with praline butter cream. It's very rich and a little old-fashioned these days, but still has many faithful fans. The original recipe comes from the master chef Gaston Lenôtre, and became one of his most famous cakes, but this version is a little easier to make.

Tarte Normande

This tart showcases ingredients from Normandy: the sweet pastry case is baked blind, then filled with apple sticks sautéed in Calvados, and a cream-egg mixture. The tart is then baked and dusted with icing sugar when cold.

Tiramisu balls

For this astonishingly quick and easy recipe, you form balls from sponge-cookie powder, mascarpone and coffee, and roll them in cocoa. The tiramisu taste is guaranteed.

Toasted almond cake

A layer cake, with toasted almonds in the chocolate part.

Viennese Shortbread

The Viennese shortbread, or "Spritz", are small shortbread cakes, with a light vanilla taste and covered with chocolate.

Walnut short bread

Those little biscuits are with good walnut taste, because walnut are shortly roasted before powdered, it's very simple and efficient.

Brioche royale

Brioche royale is a very rich brioche, made with candied fruit, toasted hazelnuts and chocolate chips. Just before baking, it is topped with "macaronade": a macaroon-style mixture of ground almonds and sugar with egg white. This creates a crust when baked and gives the brioche its elegant finish.

X-Files cookies

These cookies made with lime and almonds are a sure-fire hit with children. They enjoy the amusing shape, of course, but also the delicious flavour.

Almond cream

Light and delicious, it is used in a lot of desserts like tarts, cakes and pies (epiphany galette).

Almond dacquoise

A dacquoise is a sort of almond meringue that can be eaten like a biscuit or can be used as the base of more sophisticated desserts.

Armagnac marzipan

Almost the same as plain marzipan, but this almond paste is flavoured with a hint of Armagnac or Cognac.

Chocolate sweetcrust pastry

This simplified sweetcrust pastry gets its chocolate flavour simply from cocoa powder, added towards the end of kneading. Chocolate aficionados will enjoy using this in all sorts of recipes that call for sweetcrust pastry (pâte sablée).

Clementine Chantilly

As the Clementine season is now in full swing, I would like to tempt you to try this surprisingly different clementine-flavoured Chantilly. The recipe is very simple but delicious.

Coconut paste

Similar to marzipan or walnut paste, coconut paste can be used in a variety of cake or sweet recipes, but you can enjoy munching it just as it is.

Financier batter

This delicious mixture is for the classic little French cakes called "financiers" (because of their ingot shape), but it can also be used with fruit, like a clafoutis.

Marzipan (almond paste)

Very easy to do if you have a food processor which can slice or grate a lot of things.

Rich hazelnut buttercream

This delicious preparation is an alternative to almond frangipane: a nutty buttercream enriched with eggs, designed to be cooked into various pastries.

Royal icing

Royal icing is a mixture of egg white and icing sugar. From its pasty consistency when fresh, it dries to give a lovely white crust.

Sweet pastry

This sweet pastry is one of the basics of French pâtisserie, just like shortcrust pastry (pâte brisée) and sweetcrust pastry (pâte sablée). It is less rich in butter, so less "short" but crisper, it can be used in all tart recipes, or for any other pastry-based desserts.

Swiss meringues

Swiss meringues are a variant of the classic French meringue. The eggs whites and sugar are beaten together in a bain-marie at first, then beaten stiff as normal. This makes for a firmer meringue which can be used to make small items or figures to decorate cakes or ice creams (such as mushrooms, snowmen, etc.).

Walnut paste

Very similar to marzipan (almond paste) in method, walnut paste is very tasty.

How to dust

"Dusting" in cooking is sprinkling a very fine layer of something in powder form. Icing sugar or cocoa powder on cakes for example. As this is not very easy to do evenly, here is a way to do it.

How to make marzipan decorations

Making marzipan decorations for cakes or desserts is fairly simple. Here are some tips to make it even easier.