Travel cakes

Where does the name come from?

Historically, these cakes were made to accompany long journeys, often by boat, train or stagecoach. The aim was to create a cake that was not fragile, that could withstand a little shaking, and that kept well, at least for several days, and didn't need to be put in the fridge.

Madame de Sévigné

A pretty legend attributes the invention of the term "travel cake" to Mme De Sévigné in the ^17th century in a letter to her daughter, but it's more a modern invention, stemming from contemporary patisserie, popularized notably by chefs like Pierre Hermé and Christophe Michalak.

Characteristics of a travel cake :

To meet all these requirements, travel cakes have certain compositional imperatives:

They contain no cream (in the sense of crème pâtissière or chantilly, for example), nor fresh fruit, which would not last the desired several days.
They often have a dense or fluffy texture that enables them to remain pleasant without drying out quickly.
They generally contain a low water content to limit the risk of mold and extend their shelf life.
They are often simple in shape, typically cake-shaped, rectangular and elongated.

Classic ingredients:

Travel cake recipes are generally quite simple, using classic ingredients:

butter, sugar, eggs, flour
Sometimes enriched with dried fruit (almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios), candied fruit or spices.
Some recipes include alcohol, such as rum or Grand Marnier, for added flavor and preservation.

Some examples of travel cakes:

All cakes: chestnut, clementine, chocolate, hazelnut and orange, ...
Roasted almond cake
Oatmeal walnut cake
Leopard cake
Gingerbread
And many more...

In a nutshell: "Gâteau de voyage" is a lovely French gastronomic term, referring to long-lasting, easy-to-carry cakes that you can take with you on a trip.

Lasts posts

Cake moulds

When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25^th 20255925

Thinning out herbs

If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8^th 20251,1725

Add a bay leaf

Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31^th 20251,2565

Parsley stems

Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28^th 20251,345 13

A drizzle of olive oil

Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13^th 20251,5395

See all posts Random post RSS feeds

Other pages you may also like

Thinning out herbs

A few tips for effective kneading at home

When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23^th 2021277 K 23.7

Kitchen ovens

You certainly have one in your kitchen, an oven, the essential tool for all kinds of cooking, whether in the kitchen of course, but also in pastry, bakery, pizza, and many others. Here is some information on its structure and operation.
May 16^th 202030 K4.4

Steam for baking bread

What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...
June 16^th 2021141 K4.5

Always secure your cutting board

When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1^st 20251,6215