A Little Lexicon of French Pastry

French pastry sorts neatly into three families: boulangerie (bread), viennoiserie (enriched, often laminated morning pastries), and pâtisserie (the sweet, finished cakes and tarts). Almost everything on a bakery counter fits one of those three. Once the categories click, the names stop being intimidating.

Boulangerie vs viennoiserie vs pâtisserie: what is the difference?

These three words describe both the craft and the case it lives in.

• Boulangerie is bread — dough made from flour, water, salt, and yeast or a starter. The baguette is the headline act. Lean, crusty, not sweet.
• Viennoiserie sits between bread and pastry. The dough is enriched with butter, eggs, milk, and sugar, and it is often laminated. Croissants and pains au chocolat live here. Richer than bread, lighter than cake.
• Pâtisserie is the sweet, composed end: cakes, tarts, choux, layered creations finished with creams, fruit, and glaze. This is dessert, and the maker is a pâtissier.

The simple version: bread is boulangerie, your flaky breakfast pastries are viennoiserie, and the things in the glass case that look like dessert are pâtisserie.

The viennoiserie

The morning side of the counter.

• Croissant. Laminated, crescent-form (though often baked straight), shatteringly crisp outside and airy within. The benchmark of viennoiserie.
• Pain au chocolat. The same laminated dough as a croissant, but rolled rectangular around two batons of dark chocolate. In parts of southern France it is called a chocolatine.
• Chausson aux pommes. A turnover — puff pastry folded over a spiced apple filling and sealed into a half-moon. Chausson means slipper, for the shape.
• Brioche. Soft, golden, enriched with a lot of butter and eggs. Tender and slightly sweet, more bread-shaped than flaky. It bridges boulangerie and viennoiserie.
• Kouign-amann. A specialty from Brittany. Laminated dough loaded with butter and sugar, baked until the outside caramelizes into a crackling, sticky crust. The name is Breton for butter cake, and it is exactly as rich as that sounds.

How do you say these words?

Roughly: croissant (kwah-sahn), pain au chocolat (pan oh shoko-lah), chausson (show-sohn), brioche (bree-osh), kouign-amann (kween-ah-mahn), mille-feuille (meel-foy), macaron (mah-kah-rohn). Close is fine. Nobody on this island will hold the accent against you.

The pâtisserie

The sweet, finished side.

• Éclair. A length of choux pastry — the same airy, twice-cooked dough behind cream puffs — piped, baked hollow, filled with pastry cream, and glazed on top. Classic flavors are chocolate and coffee.
• Mille-feuille. Literally a thousand leaves. Three layers of crisp puff pastry stacked with pastry cream between them, the top usually glazed or dusted. Known in English as a napoleon.
• Tarte. An open pastry shell with a filling — fruit, custard, frangipane, lemon. No top crust, which is what separates a French tarte from a covered pie. A small one is a tartelette.
• Macaron. Two almond-meringue shells sandwiching a ganache, buttercream, or jam. Smooth-domed, with a little ruffled foot at the base. Not to be confused with the coconut macaroon, which is a different thing entirely.

Is a macaron the same as a macaroon?

No, and it is the most common mix-up. A macaron is the smooth, colorful almond-meringue sandwich. A macaroon is a craggy, coconut-based cookie. Same root word, very different pastry.

How is this organized at the counter?

Most French bakeries carry all three families under one roof, which is where the confusion starts — bread, morning pastries, and dessert pâtisserie sitting side by side. Knowing which family you are pointing at makes ordering easy: a flaky thing for the morning is viennoiserie, a slice of bread is boulangerie, and the glazed, creamy, jewel-like things are pâtisserie.

Reading a list only goes so far. The faster way to learn the lexicon is to stand at the counter and try one from each family — a croissant, an éclair, a corner of baguette. Come find the words in person; that is the part that sticks.