Cake aux fruits confits, Dimanche à Paris

Hello all! I want to tell you about a little affair I had with a French fruitcake. A friend brought me back this little slice of délicieux from Paris. She bought it at a chocolatier called Un Dimanche à Paris, which is a combination boutique-restaurant-chocolate bar, etc. Looks very chic. Here's an English review.

Let me give you the play-by-play. First, I received this lovely bag:

Extremely chic. I peeked inside, and this is what I found:

A gorgeous, elegant box, about a foot long and about 2-3 inches wide. I peeked at the side and noticed a sticker saying what was inside: cake fruits confits. In French, as many people know, cake is known as  gâteau. Cake is a specific type of cake: like a pound cake, sometimes spiced. In comparison to the more ethereal and complex gâteaux one sees in France, cake is more basic, yet still rich and delicious. Cake doesn't necessarily imply a fruitcake. However, fruits confits certainly does imply fruitcake: it means candied fruit. Yay!

The French version of fruitcake, however, is much different than the typical fruitcake I review, know, and love. Let me show you what the cake looked like when I opened the box:

Ooh la la! Very elegant. What you're seeing is a very rich, delicious pound cake with a smattering of fruit, topped with a delicious selection of candied fruit: absolutely high quality, top of the line candied fruit. Plus, my favorite lagniappe, if I may add some Cajun French to this review:

Sprinkled among the candied fruit were delicious pâtes de fruits, fruit jellies of the most delicious, intense flavor. Yummy. The one I show above is topped with a bit of chocolate showing the Un Dimanche à Paris logo.

Doing a quick Google search reveals that Dean and DeLuca offer a similar cake, and I found one at another bakery in New York. There are quite a few recipes for this around the web as well, though many of them are in French. I won't add this to the listings of fruitcakes because it is a one-off, but it was positively one of the best souvenirs I could receive from Paris!