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Georges Lefebvre's "The French Revolution" has this lovely pastry on its cover (see below).Does anyone know what this is and how to make it?

The cover of the book "The French Revolution", by Georges Lefebvre

mech
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Stijn D'hondt
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    It's hard to be sure, but it looks like a *tarte au citron* or lemon curd tart. Recipe requests are off topic, but you should be able to find plenty of them online. – Alan Munn Apr 21 '19 at 13:53
  • Alan: you should put that in as an answer – FuzzyChef Apr 22 '19 at 23:44
  • @alanmunn - It might be general recipe requests are too broad, but if they’re asking for a specific persons specific recipe (ie, lefebvre’s lemon tart recipe in this book only, instead of “any good” lemon tart recipe) might that be on topic? – Megha Apr 24 '19 at 06:00
  • @Megha Not really. See [What types of recipe questions are allowed?](https://cooking.meta.stackexchange.com/q/728/42797) for some discussion. BTW, the book in the picture is an actual history book, not a cookbook. – Alan Munn Apr 24 '19 at 12:03

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To me it looks like a minimal tartelette au fraise (little strawberry tart). These usually have a custard layer and are normally completely covered in strawberries, but I have seen them with far fewer strawberries. Mixed fruit (tartelette au fruit) or raspberry (tartelette au framboise) tarts are also common.

Here's a youtube recipe video (not my favourite recipe format!) of tartelette au fraise with lots of custard and a single strawberry. The crème diplomate used here is similar to crème patissiere but with whipped cream and gelatine added. I've found a few similar pictures, and the versions with more custard and less strawberry seem to be more popular these days among North-African French chefs than in the bits of France I'm familiar with. My French is passable but my Arabic is sadly lacking so I can't get as much history from the recipes as I would like.

The pâte brisée/shortcrust pastry case may be sweet or plain (even slightly salted).

As the book in question is an 1960s English translation I suspect tracking down the source image will be tricky, but 1950s/60s French books on patisserie would be an interesting place to look - though I wouldn't expect them to have many colour photos.

Chris H
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  • I've also found a pdf of the book but there's no photo credit (and no back cover). Tineye and Google image search don't find the photo if I crop out the title. – Chris H Apr 24 '19 at 15:09