Casablanca Pastry Class — Moroccan Sweets & French-Moroccan Bakes

Casablanca has Morocco's most cosmopolitan café and pastry culture, a legacy of the French protectorate layered over deep Moroccan traditions. Its patisseries display gazelle horns beside éclairs, and Casablancais take their afternoon sweets seriously. A pastry class here teaches the Moroccan classics with an awareness of that French-Moroccan crossover.

The heart of the class is the Moroccan canon: kaab el ghazal, the crescent gazelle horns filled with orange-blossom almond paste; chebakia, the sesame flowers fried and steeped in honey; and briouat, the crisp warqa triangles filled sweet with almond or savoury with cheese. These are the pastries stacked at every celebration and served with tea to guests.

The host explains the building blocks that all Moroccan pastry relies on — almond paste, orange-blossom and rosewater, honey at the right temperature, and how to handle warqa, the fragile Moroccan filo. Depending on the session you may also touch the French-influenced side, such as an orange-and-almond cake or the ghriba shortbreads that sit between the two traditions.

It is a precise, patient class rather than a quick one, ideal for keen bakers, and you box up what you make to take away. Being in a modern city, it is typically taught in a well-equipped kitchen, and it is a good option for a Casablanca layover when you want something calmer and more creative than a street-food day.