A Few of the Imitation Fruits & Nuts - Stuffed With Flavored Mousses, Ganaches & Other Jellied or Crunchy Fillings - Developed by the Parisian Pastry Chef Cedric Grolet. The Faux Apples, Mangoes, Blueberries, Lemons, Vanilla Beans, Quince & Pistachios are on Offer, Depending on the Season, at Grolet’s Patisserie at Le Meurice Hotel.
The Apples Are Not What They Seem - by Lauren Joseph, Photography Credits - by Sophie Kirk, Design & Presentation - by Julia Zagury | The New York Times - Style Magazine - The Winter Travel Issue - Life-Style - Food - Where 2 Eat - Travel | 10th/11/2025
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A French Tradition Since at Least the 14th Century, Trompe L’Oeil Sweets are Especially Well Suited to Our Social Media Age.
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Shortly after the pastry chef Laurent Jeannin joined Le Bristol Hotel Paris in 2007, he added to the menu a replica of a lemon fashioned out of lemon jelly mousse, (with pear & lemon thyme compote filling). The Citron-de-Menton, as the dish was called, quickly drew attention, says Gilbert Pytel, 59, the editor of the magazine Le Journal-des-Pâtissiers. He credits Jeannin, (died in 2017), as one of the 1st chefs to re-imagine trompe l’oeil desserts for this century.
While the flavors & final forms of these entremets - small pastries consisting of several textures - differ, the basic elements are often the same. A layer of sponge, a mousse or whipped ganache filling & a fruit component are all set into a mold & frozen, before being coated in a mixture of cocoa butter, chocolate & food coloring & finished with a velvet spray or mirror glaze, until the shell mimics a dimpled mandarin skin or the bruised flesh of a pear.
How Baked Goods Help Tell the Story of Culture Across the Globe.
A taste of bánh in Vietnam, conchas in Mexico, egg tarts in Hong Kong, wienerbrød in Denmark, trompe l’oeil entremets in France, kaab el ghazal in Morocco, convent sweets in Spain, baklava in Turkey & Frankenpastries in New York. + find recipes for home baking here. And take a closer look at the covers.
The trompe l’oeil French cooking tradition dates back to at least the 14th century. French chefs “always played little tricks” to amuse royal patrons, says food historian Jim Chevallier, 74, citing a recipe for an imitation hedgehog, made of chopped nuts, in the cook-book “Le Viandier-de-Taillevent,” (published in the late 1300s). The Paris-based pastry chef Jean-Thomas Schneider, 44, who also specializes in Trompe l’Oeil confections, draws inspiration from the fantastical creations of the early 19th-century chef Marie-Antoine Carême, especially his elaborate pièces montées – (edible architectural structures made of spun sugar & marzipan often including sculpted fruit & vegetable). “Leafing through old pastry books, you realize that the idea isn’t new,” Schneider says. “The difference is that today’s techniques & the use of silicone molds allow for much greater realism.”
Trompe l’Oeil Entremets May Date Back to the 14th Century, But They Were Made for the Social Media Age.
Since Jeannin’s Citron-de-Menton, other pastry chefs have specialized in the style. This rise co-incided with that of social media, where a love of visual trickery (like cakes disguised as pens or food items) matched the chefs’ dedication to hyper-verisimilitude. Perhaps the best-known practitioner is Cedric Grolet, 40, who in 2022 began posting videos of the imitation fruits he was crafting at Paris’s Le Meurice hotel. (He now has 13 million followers on Instagram.) Along with social media, Pytel also credits specialized molds - sold by many professional bakeware manufacturers - for the widespread popularity of the desserts across France in the past several years, as they allow chefs to easily make what was once a labor-intensive dish.
But what if, even with molds, you just cannot get your lemon pastry to actually resemble a lemon? Schneider, who recently created a lemon of his own, filled with lemon mousse & fresh mint cream, for a gala hosted by the French embassy in Rome, says not to worry. “The most important thing isn’t the appearance, it’s the taste & the balance of textures,” he says. “Customers buy with their eyes - but they only come back if it’s good.”
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