Baking an American Cake in Paris

Unlike in America where I usually expect my friends to shower me with gifts (such as a Gators Snuggie) and funfetti cupcakes, it is typical custom in Paris to bake (or buy) your own cake to share with your friends.  So for my birthday yesterday, I decided to treat my labmates and friends with an American cake.  What is an American cake?  Well, I'm American and I made it.  Also, yellow cake with chocolate frosting... which I have not seen in any Parisian pâtisseries.  But I was confident that my French friends would like it... it contains lots of butter.

Well, I am usually the eater of the group, and never been the baker (that role was for Megan!)  And I quickly came upon the first hurdles which many Americans trying to bake in France encounter: flour (la farine).  Indeed I never realized how diverse the flour market was.  I was only aware of all purpose flour and cake flour.  And to make matters worse... French flour is different in gluten and protein content.

A sampling of the different types of flour in France, and Maizena (corn starch).

The farine type is written on the side of the bag.

It seems like all these flours might be the same (see image), maybe with the difference of "BIO" farine de blé being the organic flour (bio, pronounced B.O. ... hehehe, which is what the French stereotypically have!... generally means organic).  But upon closer inspection, we find some differences.  The white bag in the middle gives our biggest clue, with the label "T55" (or type 55).  It turns out that French flour is classified by the residual mineral content is left in the flour, as explained in this Cooksinfo.com page.  The BIO flour is actually type 65, which is written on small print on the side of the bag.  The Moulin d'Or flour is described as "pour gâteaux cuisine et pâtisserie fine" (for cakes and pastries), indicating that it is type 45 (also written in small print on the side).  The different types and their American equivalents was charted by this article at Chow.com.

So I grabbed my eggs (les oeufs), butter (la beurre), granulated sugar (le sucre en poudre... which literally means powdered sugar!  American powdered sugar is French sucre glace), milk (le lait),  baking powder (la levure... watch out! there are different ones for cake and bread) and my farine and got to work.  My second hurdle was that I didn't have a mixer.  But this was nothing I couldn't tackle with the help of a hand-held food processor, a whisk, and le boyfriend with a strong arm (insert joke here?).  Luckily for me, I also stumbled upon this blogpost which suggest that I mix half farine with half cornstarch (Maizena) to get that American fluffy cake.  Great tip!  I used type 45 farine and Maizena and got a great fluffy yellow cake which then I smothered with Scharffen berger chocolate icing.  I served it with coffee, tea, and French cider (5% alcohol).  It was a hit!

PS  Apparently a big difference for them between French cakes and the American cake was the icing... which they loved!