Why grams, and not cups
Volume measures flour by how tightly it happens to be packed. Scoop a cup straight from the bag and you compress it; spoon it in loosely and level it off and you do not. The same nominal cup can differ by twenty per cent or more between those two habits, and nothing in the recipe tells you which the author did. In a bread dough that is the difference between slack and stiff; in a cake it is the difference between moist and dry.
Fat and sugar are less sensitive but not immune, and anything sticky, whether honey, golden syrup or treacle, is essentially unmeasurable by volume because most of what you measured stays in the cup. Weighing solves all of it, costs nothing after the first purchase of a scale, and has the side effect of making a recipe scalable: half of 340 g is obvious in a way that half of one and a third cups is not.
Where a quantity genuinely is a volume, meaning liquids and small quantities of leavening or salt where a spoon is more accurate than a household scale, it stays a volume. The point is accuracy rather than consistency for its own sake.
Substitutions: the ones that work and the one that does not
Most substitution advice fails because it matches an ingredient on one axis and ignores the one that matters. Fromage blanc is the clearest example, and it comes up constantly because it is hard to buy outside France.
A fresh unripened cheese, usually cow's milk, with the consistency of soured cream and a milder tang. Almost always made from SKIM milk, so it is markedly leaner than quark or cream cheese - which is why a straight cream-cheese swap changes the crumb.
- quark: 1:1, closest match on both tang and texture.
- fromage frais: 1:1.
- strained plain yoghurt: right consistency, sweeter flavour.
- ricotta: savoury use only - the grain never becomes spreadable.
- cream cheese: 2-3x the fat, richer and tangier - reduce other fat.
Only one of those is a true one-for-one, and which swap fails in a cheesecake rather than merely tasting different is set out at fromage blanc cake.
The general rule that falls out of this: match on texture and fat first, flavour second. A swap with the right consistency and the wrong tang gives a slightly different dessert. A swap with the right tang and the wrong texture gives a failed one, because texture is structural and flavour is not.
Two names that mean more than one thing
Tarte tropézienne
A halved brioche topped with pearl sugar and filled with two creams: a thick crème pâtissière combined with buttercream. It comes from Saint-Tropez and dates to 1952, when the Polish confectioner Alexandre Micka adapted a family recipe. Brigitte Bardot suggested the name in the mid-1950s while filming there, and Micka adopted it. The same dessert became popular in Prague in the 1970s, where it is known as Prague cake.
Cake banane
The French-language name for a banana loaf or banana bread, the same thing and not a distinct preparation. It is listed here because the French term and the English one are used interchangeably in bilingual kitchens, and a recipe titled cake banane is not promising anything different.
The tropézienne is worth one note of care. The name was registered as a trademark in 1973 and the original business still trades, so it is described here as a pastry, a halved brioche topped with pearl sugar and filled with two creams, and nothing here implies any association with that business.
“Fondant” is the other trap, and it is worse because both meanings are baking terms. Fondant as a covering is the pliable sugar paste rolled over cakes; fondant au chocolat is a small baked cake with a deliberately unset centre. They share a name and nothing else, and a search for one lands as often on the other.
Where the fruit numbers live
Any recipe involving a preserve, a curd or a fruit filling depends on figures that belong to the fruit rather than the method: how acidic it is, whether it carries enough pectin to set, how much sugar it brings of its own. Those are in the fruit register, and a recipe here will point at it rather than restate it.
Questions about the recipes
Why are quantities in grams rather than cups?
Because a cup of flour is a range, not a quantity. The same cup can vary by twenty per cent or more depending on whether it was scooped or spooned, and the recipe cannot tell you which. Weighing also makes a recipe scalable and handles sticky ingredients, most of which stay in the measuring cup.
What can I use instead of fromage blanc?
Quark is the only true one-for-one, being the German and Central European equivalent and matches on both tang and texture. Fromage frais also works one-for-one. Strained yoghurt has the right consistency but is sweeter. Ricotta is the worst choice in a cheesecake because its grain never smooths out.
Is fondant gluten free?
Ask which fondant first. The sugar paste is gluten-free in principle, being sugar, water and glycerine, but commercial brands add flavourings and stabilisers that may carry gluten, and shared production facilities are a real risk. Glucose syrup derived from wheat does appear on labels and is considered safe for coeliacs. Fondant au chocolat, the cake, normally contains wheat flour.
What is a tarte tropézienne?
A halved brioche topped with pearl sugar and filled with two creams: a thick crème pâtissière combined with buttercream. It comes from Saint-Tropez and dates to 1952. The same dessert became popular in Prague in the 1970s, where it is known as Prague cake.
Can I halve a recipe safely?
By weight, yes, almost always, and that is one of the reasons for weighing. The exceptions are tin size, where you should scale by base area rather than diameter, and baking time, which does not halve. A shallower batter in the same tin bakes faster; the same batter in a smaller tin bakes for a similar time.