Marie Antoinette Cake
We’re going back to 18th century Versailles to learn what Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI ate. Marie Antoinette…out of touch villain who when told that the people of France had no bread said “let them eat cake!?” Or maligned scapegoat of the French Revolution? We will get to the infamous quote…but first, let’s make some cake.
Marie Antoinette did in fact love cake and chocolate, so in her honor I made a chocolate cake fit for a queen. 18th century baking was far more complicated than today. Before the invention of baking powder and soda, cakes were leavened with yeast, whipped eggs, or pearl ash mixed with an acid like buttermilk. This old fashioned cake, is actually my Grandmas recipe, which uses buttermilk and baking soda. Everything was mixed by hand, although at Versailles, there were many chefs, bakers and confectioners. Her favorite breakfast was hot chocolate, often flavored with orange blossom from the Versailles orangerie and topped with whipped cream. Marie Antoinette loved chocolate, macarons, even drank sugar water flavored with orange blossom. I’m going to add a little orange blossom flavor to this buttercream. Marie Antoinette had good taste because chocolate and orange flavors go really well together. This cake is modeled after the opening scene of the 2006 Sofia Coppola film, Marie Antoinette, one of my absolute favorites.
So let’s discuss the quote. “Let them Eat Cake.” If she DID say it, it would have been such an insult to the starving people of France in a time when bread was too expensive. Poor wheat harvests caused shortages, which made bread prices soar, leading to riots. What’s more likely is that the quote comes from Rousseau’s autobiography, attributing the quote to “a great princess”. At the time he wrote this, Marie Antoinette was a kid in Austria. See what I mean about being maligned? She had 2 strikes against her…she was a woman and foreign. So naturally, she was painted as the root of all financial problems in France. She did spend money but that was her job; to be beautiful, entertain, throw parties and make French heirs. She wasn’t heartless and she didn’t say it. But it fit the narrative and France wanted blood. In 1793, Marie Antoinette was sent to the guillotine to die.
Versailles (Wikimedia Commons)
A Day of Food at Versailles for Marie Antoinette…
Marie Antoinette loved hot chocolate for breakfast with whipped cream & a kipferl, an Austrian crescent shaped layered bread, a precursor to France’s beloved croissant. She didn’t eat much mid day but she was once scolded for hosting a hunting picnic lunch for husband. Her family told her that handing out cold meats to a hunting party “was not the most becoming conduct of a future queen of France.”
Dinners at Versailles were a spectacle…Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI ate some of their meals publicly, called Le Grand Couvert, meant to impress, entertain and also humanize the royals… Marie Antoinette’s favorite dish was roast duck. Potatoes came into popularity thanks to Antoine Parmentier, Louis and Marie Antoinette. Prior to, potatoes were animal feed and thought to cause leprocy. Marie Antoinette may not have said Let them eat cake but she did love it.
Versailles Dining Room (Wikimedia Commons)
Versailles public dinners, called the grand couvert were a spectacle to watch! These impressive dinners helped humanize the king and Queen. Grab a stool and gather round to watch me eat, peasants. Louis XVI liked to eat, especially after hunting, which quote “gave him an appetite which he satisfied with a good humor which was a pleasure to watch.” She “did not take off her gloves or unfold her serviette, which was a great mistake on her part”. Oh my god, she can’t even eat right to these people.
A procession of “The kings meat”- what they called his meal, was led by 20 servers & body guards. The Act of presenting the king his napkin was even an honor for a prince of the blood. All food was tasted for poison by kings officers. Louis the 16th once ate so much pastry that he made himself sick. Marie Antionette had all the pastry dishes removed and forbade any more to be served.
Louis XVI (Wikimedia Commons)
Louis XV (Wikimedia Commons)
Louis XV encouraged diners to create their own dishes, especially his mistresses, Madame Du Barry & Madame Pompadour. Du Barry was known for her extravagant taste (just google the diamond necklace scandal!). Her dish was weird… stewed partridge in white wine with a small cabbage, pickled pork and sausage. By the way, Du Barry and Marie Antoinette had a famously contentious relationship. Marie Antoinette would get very upset with Louis when he dined with Du Barry and King Louis XV. Madame Pompadour’s dish sounds much more appetizing. Fillet of sole cooked in champagne with truffles and mushrooms. Madame Pompadour was a taste maker and popularized champage, especially Moet and encouraged champagne to be served at royal events.
France got one of it’s most famous sauces from Louis XV’s table. Mayonaise gets its name from military general Richelieu’s capture of port Mahon in Minorca. The sauce was named Mahonnaise, or MAYONNAISE. Amazing. Oh and get this… it is believed that Du Barry had an affair with general Richelieu as well.
Marie Antoinette had this Shepherdess phase, and she even dressed the part. She had a little village built on the grounds of her home, petite Trianon. Her model village was home to sheep, goats, cows, & chickens. It even had it’s own marble and silver dairy for serving fresh milk to her friends. She planted hundreds of fruit trees and berry bushes. There was a mill and bakery. Servants of the village would even wipe down the fresh eggs and put them back so they were clean for Marie Antoinette to gather herself. This was her little oasis from the prying eyes of Versailles, where she could be in nature and live simply.
Model Village at Petite Trianon (Wikimedia Commons)
Marie Antoinette (Wikimedia Commons)
If you like potatoes, you need to know about Antione Parmentier. While a prisoner of war in Prussia, Parmentier was fed mostly potatoes. At this time in Europe, potatoes were only fit to feed animals and prisoners. They were believed to cause leprocy until Parmentier set the record straight. He came to Louis & Marie Antoinette in hopes to share his passion for the potato and to help feed the starving people of France. Louis gave Parmentier 54 acres to grow potatoes. He came to Versailles with a bouquet of potato flowers, Louis put one in his jacket button hole and Marie Antoinette pinned a corsage to her dress…the next day potato flowers were selling for 10 gold pieces, and that’s potato fashion, baby. Parmentier served potatoes 20 different ways at a dinner for influential people, including Benjamin Franklin. Parmentier was once quoted “in future, famine will be impossible!” Aw, dream big buddy. The potato blights in Ireland the following century would make his prediction incorrect. But he did help feed many starving people of France and give the potato its rightful place as France’s national vegetable.
Parmentier (Wikimedia Commons)
Chocolate Cake with Orange Blossom Buttercream
Ingredients
- 6 cups powdered sugar
- 2 cups unsalted butter (4 sticks, softened to room temperature)
- 2 teaspoons orange blossom extract
- 3-4 Tablespoons of heavy cream
- Pink food dye
- 1 stick unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup oil
- 1 cup water
- 2 cups granulated sugar
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup buttermilk
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Bring a stick unsalted butter, oil and water to a boil.
- Whisk dry ingredients together, including sugar. Pour the butter/water mixture over the dry ingredients. Mix well.
- Mix buttermilk and baking soda until foamy in a separate bowl. Add buttermilk to the cake batter. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix batter until smooth.
- Line a 18x13 inch baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour batter and tap pan on the counter to get out air bubbles. Smooth with a spatula. Bake for 20 minutes at 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Allow cake to cool completely before cutting out rounds of cake and frosting the cakes. Depending on how large your cake rounds are, you may need to do another batch of cake to achieve the desired height. For a 3 tiered cake with 2 layers in each tier like the video, you will need 2-3 batches of sheet cake. The rounds I used are 4 inches, 6 inches and 7.8 inches.
- Mix the buttercream in a stand mixer with a paddle attachment until well combined.
- Once cake has completely cooled, you can begin assembling the cake, layering buttercream in between. I do a crumb coat on each layer, refrigerating in between adding another layer of buttercream to keep the chocolate crumbs from being visible.
- Once frosted, you can decorate with macarons and rose petals(if the flowers touch the cake, make sure the roses haven’t been sprayed with chemicals).