Queen Marie Antoinette had a serious sweet tooth, hint: a lot of French desserts

Queen Marie Antoinette is infamous, lately which is making its rounds on social media, for being insensitive enough to declare “Let them eat cake”, something historians tout as false. The Queen had a simple diet as compared to the lavish feasts in the castle, but before she was guillotined, she enjoyed a lot of sugary French desserts in France. She was also nicknamed “Madame Deficit” because she loved to indulge in the riches despite her subjects suffering in poverty. The Queen even had her own chocolatier in Versailles, whose goodies, the King also savored. Let’s dive straight into what else she used to enjoy.

Despite loving sugary delights, she was also famed for her nonexistent waist, something that had to do with her meal timing – breakfast like a King, lunch like a Queen, and dinner like a peasant. She was known to nibble on food throughout the day, especially sweets, but the terrible smell in the Versailles palace due to lack of indoor plumbing perhaps contributed to her food intake too. Even her drinks were fruity and infused, she loved lemonade, and orange blossom water and only drank special imported water. That being said let’s take a tour of what the Queen enjoyed.

1. Croissant

Like many French folks today including the ones who love a great French breakfast, the Queen loved warm pastries, in particular, freshly baked croissants. It was likely she was munching on the Viennese version of croissant before the French adopted it as their national stereotype and much-loved baked goodie. Nowadays the term croissant always denotes the artful multi-layered French croissant that ranges from plain ole butter desserts to also falling under chocolate desserts, as tourists are often seen dipping their croissants in melted chocolate.

2. Petit Fours

Just like Marie Antoinette’s slim waist, Petit Fours are dainty and a French confection that comes in small sizes. Among the confections that the Queen loved, this one is perhaps the only one that felt and looked fit enough to feed royalty. The litte cakes are made with sponge cake layered with jam or frosting and typically coated in white chocolate or fondant. During her reign, the pastries might have been much simpler.

3. Hot Chocolate

Marie Antoinette liked to pair her warm baked pastries, the likes of croissants, with hot chocolate, which she loved to enjoy with whipped cream. Most of us might have hot chocolate on a cold winter evening or night, but Marie Antoinette had hers for breakfast. It was not only Marie Antoinette who enjoyed this drink known to have aphrodisiac and energizing qualities, the whole French court loved it. The French Court sipped on hot chocolate so much that it paved the way for its boom during the Industrial Revolution as well.

4. Crystallized fruit

Not quite that far off from the candied fruits, there is not much of a difference between candied, glacé, or crystallized fruit. Crystallized fruits were among the many sweets she loved. She also enjoyed fruits that were beyond their season, courtesy of owning a garden that grew fruits atypical of their season.

5. Chocolate

Chocolate was brought to France by the Spanish and thereby also invaded the French court, which prompted the establishment of a Versailles chocolatier catering exclusively to the King and Queen. But the great irony is that cocoa which forms the base of chocolate, was introduced to Marie Antoinette as sweet pellets (pistoles) by Sulpice Debauve, a pharmacist to the court of Louis XVI, to make bitter medicines more palatable for the Queen. He knew that the Queen loved hot chocolate, and used cocoa powder mixed with almond milk to create coin-like discs that paved the way for other varieties of chocolates, which took another decade or so.

6. Macarons

Similar to the croissant’s tale, the current petite and fancy-looking macarons were hardly present when the Queen was still reigning and alive. The tale of macarons is attached to another queen in French history, which dates back to 1533 when the Italian Catherine de' Medici married Henry the II and brought with her a team of Florentine chefs to Paris. They had made a cookie with almond paste and it was just a simple biscuit which was quite delicious. This is what Marie Antoinette also enjoyed several years down the line, because the modern macaron took form only in 1930 invented by Pierre Desfontaines, the descendant of the founder of Laudurée.