Confiseries

An outdoor seasonal confiserie cart holds famous confections of France representing centuries of regional heritage. With an important caveat— I could make them. As follows:

Les Nougats de Montélimar—chewy confection with folded in whole almonds & pistachios. My baked polymer clay version favorite.

Pâtes fe Fruits—these are the colorful filled jars with fruit jellies (apricot, pear and raspberry), tossed in sugar to look like jewels.

Les Caramels au Beurre Salé—salted butter caramels from Brittany using fleur de sel (hand harvested sea salt) and high quality butter. I stacked them in boxes with a clear window and tied with silk ribbons.

Les Calissons d’Aix—diamond shaped yellow almond & candied melon paste on a wafer, topped with royal white icing. I made these by hand, grain of rice sized.

Meringues—light and airy egg whites & sugar, the small piped ones are meringuettes. Technically from Meringen, Switzerland yet introduced to French royalty in Nancy. How about that, Nancy boasts macarons and meringues. A mold was used for these then packaged with a gold card paper and cellophane.

Meringues Géantes—large cloud-like artisan meringue versions in vanilla, swirled with chocolate and swirled with rose. Used the brioche mold.

Guimauve—French marshmallow that melts in your mouth. Traditional long braided ropes were made in both rose and lime, wrapped in plastic wrap and sealed with a quick blow from a heat gun. Some smaller cut pieces are sold in jars.

Dragées—French almonds in glossy sugar shell from the town of Verdun. Mine, however, are more like tiny sugar balls since I used a scrapbook supply on hand instead of making them.

Berlingot Nantais—boiled sweets from Nantes named after their tetrahedron shape. You have to have a special machine called a berlingtotiére to make them, however a miniature chocolate mold worked fine.

L’Ami Provençal—violet hard candies shaped like lavender flowers. I used a tiny flower mold and put them in jars with one on the exterior.

Confiserie Cart

During the Belle Époque, wheeled pushcarts became traveling masterpieces of Art Nouveau design with gold leafing, hand painted floral trim, slender spoked wheels, textile canopies and gilded packaging. An afternoon at the Jardin du Luxembourg may draw a gathering to the Chocolat Menier cart or the glacé cart at the Tuileries. Tea rooms like Ladurée were internally focused on attracting clientele to their opulent interiors—the Ladurée carts are modern marketing meant to evoke the charm of the past.

Ironically, a modern Ladurée cart served as inspiration to make a historical pâtisserie’s cart—and most likely the pâtisseie would have refrained from using a luxury push cart like the commercial chocolate companies. Add more irony that a miniature “peddler cart” kit was used to make it.

In defense, the peddler cart provided the much-needed wheels and handles as well as a base to begin with. It was modified to be whimsical with gilded spindle columns supporting a scalloped canopy fringe and scalloped-laced trim. There is a step-display with a mirror and room inside the cart for storage. The typography on the back matches the pâtisserie’s. Battery lights were installed in a back panel to illuminate the confections, however they are already finicky, Amazon duds. Adhering all the little items in the cart without leaving evidence of glue was a challenge. Removing some of those items because they didn’t belong on the cart and then re-gluing to cover empty spaces was another challenge. Just so you know, macarons would melt on a cart.