chausson aux pommes

Chaussons aux pomme, with their sweet apple filling, are one of the most common viennoiserie pastries available every morning in the boulangeries. Invented in the north of France, the name translates as ‘apple slippers’, not so much for their shape, but because the apples are inserted the same way as you slide a foot in a slipper.

Every first weekend in September since 1630, Saint-Calais in the Pays de la Loire celebrates a Fête de Chausson aux Pommes honouring the local châtelaine who saved her people from starvation during a plague by distributing a cart full of flour and apples.

In Normandy, the becs de Flers (or bec Flérien) is similar, but contains a mix of apple and rhubarb.