While we might associate French sweets with complicated, laborious pastries, the country is also home to plenty of quick and easy desserts. Even the most basic French cakes don't lack in flavor, relying on quality ingredients instead of a whole lot of work, and a hint of booze shows up in countless cake recipes for a good reason.

Cakes that call for basic ingredients and are ready for the oven in a few minutes don't have much time to develop a complex taste, so French bakers use highly flavorful liqueurs like rum to boost their sweets. A spoonful or two of deeply fragrant liqueurs such as prune Armagnac or apple Calvados greatly enhances and deepens flavors.

Of the 100 cakes featured in food writer Aleksandra Crapanzano’s book on French cakes, about half of them feature booze. The spirit should be chosen based on the flavors in the cake, says Crapanzano: "If you're making a raspberry cake, maybe you add a little bit of framboise, Calvados for an apple cake, or crème de pêche for a peach cake."