Recipe
🍰 DESSERT
Fougasse Monégasque
A sweet anise-and-orange-blossom bread topped with nuts and tiny red-and-white sweets, Monaco's festive bake.
Monégasque · medium · serves 8
prep 40 min · cook 25 min
~661 cal · 9g protein · 55g carbs · 46g fat · 3g fiber · 15g sugars · 13g sat fat (estimated, per serving)
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The fougasse monégasque is the traditional festive sweet bread of Monaco, quite distinct from the savoury Provençal fougasse. It is above all a Christmas speciality, part of the ritual of the principality's holiday table.
The soft, enriched dough is perfumed with anise and orange-blossom water, flavours that run through the sweet baking of the whole region. Baked flat and golden, it is decorated with walnuts and almonds and, most distinctively, scattered with tiny red-and-white aniseed sweets that give it a festive, confetti-like look. Fragrant and celebratory, it is torn and shared over the holidays.
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Make it yours
✓ Naturally vegetarian and egg- and pork-free. No swaps needed.
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
🐖 Pork-Free
Dietary labels are a cooking guide, not allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish; we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, read the label on every product you use, and note that a kitchen can cross-contaminate in ways a recipe cannot control.
Ingredients
US
Metric
Serves 8
3 cups flour
2 tsp instant yeast
2/3 cup butter, softened
1/3 cup sunflower or other
1/2 cup dry white wine
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp anise seeds
1/3 cup
1 tsp salt
1 cup whole almonds and pine nuts
1/3 cup red-and-white aniseed sweets (fenuglieti) and white sugared dragees
Hard to find? candied fennel seed sweets (mukhwas, from an Indian grocer) or coarse sugar grains - fenuglieti barely exist outside Monaco; candied fennel gives the same anise crunch, though not the red and white of the flag
Instructions
1
Make an enriched dough with the flour, yeast, softened butter, oil, white wine, sugar, anise seeds, half the orange blossom water, and the salt.
2
Cover it warmly and let it rise slowly until well doubled, ideally overnight or a full day.
✎ Chef’s note
The long slow rise is what gives the fougasse its light, faintly boozy crumb. Rushing it in a couple of hours makes a heavy, bready cake.
3
Press the dough out about a finger thick on an oiled baking sheet and let it rise again.
4
Scatter the almonds, pine nuts, aniseed sweets, and dragees over the surface and press them lightly in, then bake at 375F (190C) until golden, about 22 minutes.
5
Straight out of the oven, brush the fougasse with the rest of the orange blossom water and dust it with sugar, then let it cool.
Monégasque Christmas tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers, know your destination
📍
Monaco. Barbagiuan means Uncle John in Monegasque. The parcels are filled with chard and ricotta, sometimes with rice or leek, then fried, and they belong particularly to the national day on 19 November rather than to any ordinary Tuesday.
🗺️
Monaco. Barbagiuan is the Monegasque dish, a fried turnover of chard and ricotta whose name means something like Uncle John, and it is what appears at national celebrations. Stocafi is the other, stockfish rehydrated and stewed slowly in tomato with olives, a way of using dried cod on a coast that had no refrigeration.
🌍
Europe. Europe has written a great deal of its food into law. A regulation of 1992 created the protected designation of origin and the protected geographical indication, tying a name to a place and a method, and an EU evaluation published in 2021 counted more than three thousand registered names across those schemes, from cheeses and hams down to particular shapes of bread.
The story behind this dish is up top, worth a read while the pot works.
More from Monaco
StocafiMonaco's stockfish stew, simmered in tomato, wine, olives, and herbs until rich and tender.
SoccaA thin, crisp-edged chickpea-flour pancake baked hot and eaten in torn pieces with black pepper.
Pan BagnatA round loaf soaked in olive oil and packed with a Niçoise salad of tuna, egg, and vegetables, a Riviera lunch.
Browse all Monaco recipes →
Good to know
You’ll need: Oven.
Storing it: Best the day it is made. Wrap well and refresh in a warm oven, or freeze and reheat straight from frozen.
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Frequently asked questions
What is Fougasse Monégasque?
A sweet anise-and-orange-blossom bread topped with nuts and tiny red-and-white sweets, Monaco's festive bake.
Where does Fougasse Monégasque come from?
Fougasse Monégasque is a Monégasque dish from Monaco, Monaco.
Can Fougasse Monégasque be made vegan, gluten-free, or dairy-free?
This Fougasse Monégasque recipe includes substitution suggestions for vegetarian, vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, nut-free, egg-free, and pork-free versions, including several at once such as gluten-free and dairy-free together. Treat them as a starting guide rather than a guarantee, and see the allergen note below.
Is Fougasse Monégasque safe for people with food allergies?
Our dietary labels and substitutions are a cooking guide, not medical or allergen-safety advice. We track dairy, egg, gluten, tree nuts and peanuts (we count coconut as a tree nut, following FDA labeling), fish, and shellfish, but we do not screen for sesame, soy, mustard, celery, or sulphites. If you have a food allergy, always read the label on every product you use, and remember a home or commercial kitchen can cross-contaminate ingredients in ways a recipe cannot control.
How long does Fougasse Monégasque take to make?
About 65 minutes total (40 minutes prep, 25 minutes cooking), serving 8.
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