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New ZealandFlavors · Cambo-les-Bains
Buttery pastry cake filled with pastry cream or black cherry jam, with the surface scored with a fork. The earliest references date to the 19th century and point to Cambo-les-Bains as its birthplace, where a festival is held for it every early October.
Traditional sweet from Cambo-les-Bains, Nova Aquitânia
Also known as: etxeko biskotxa, biskotxak
Illustrative images. The pictures in this guide are illustrations based on the real place, not photographs, and may differ from it.
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Gâteau basque — Cambo-les-Bains, France
The gâteau basque is a round, low cake made with two layers of a firm, buttery dough—somewhere between cake and tart—filled in the middle. The traditional filling is a pastry cream flavored with rum, vanilla, or anise; the other classic version uses black cherry jam, preferably from Itxassou, the village next to Cambo. The top is brushed with egg yolk and scored with the back of a fork before baking.
The cake’s ancestor is called biskotxak in Basque. The earliest references date to about 1830 and point to Cambo-les-Bains, a spa town inland in the Basque Country, as the place where it appeared. A Cambo pastry chef, Marianne Hirigoyen, sold her cakes at Bayonne markets in the 19th century and passed the recipe to her daughters; her story is told as part of the local tradition.
It was a family sweet, eaten after Sunday mass. Today it is enjoyed at any time of day. In 1994 the Eguzkia association was created to bring together artisanal pastry chefs around a defined recipe, with pastry cream as the official filling, and to organize the Gâteau Basque Festival in Cambo-les-Bains on the first weekend of October.
The Basques tend to prefer the cream version; many visitors choose the cherry one.
Cambo-les-Bains , Nova Aquitânia
The earliest references point to Cambo-les-Bains as the cake’s birthplace, and the town holds a festival for it in October.
Flour, butter, sugar, eggs and yolks, baking powder; filling of pastry cream (milk, egg yolks, sugar, flour, rum or vanilla) or black cherry jam.
Sliced, at room temperature, for breakfast, a snack, or as a dessert.
All year; it has its own festival in Cambo-les-Bains on the first weekend of October.
Your questions
The traditional filling is a pastry cream flavored with rum, vanilla, or anise. The other classic version uses black cherry jam, preferably from Itxassou.
The earliest references, from around 1830, point to Cambo-les-Bains, a spa town inland in the French Basque Country.
In Cambo-les-Bains, on the first weekend of October. Check the date each year.
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