Le Figaro Bordeaux
“The secret of the cream”
is passed on by word of mouth in the bakery before distilling on the taste buds.
On the Lège-Cap-Ferret peninsula, the light white dunes cream from
Chez Pascal
is an institution.
Children ask for it when they see its storefront, workers buy it during the 10 a.m. break and truckers park in double lines to taste the culinary specialty on the go.
The treat born at Grand Piquey is composed of a chouquette filled with whipped cream and sprinkled with
“snow”
, in other words white sugar.
“Like all beautiful things, it’s simple.
And this extraordinary product is also a very nice accident...We were already making empty chouquettes and cream for other cakes.
One day, my son, Brice, coming back from fishing with his friends, ate the ones that were left, brushing them with cream
,” recalls Lucas Pascal.
During the months that followed, Brice Pascal insisted that his father serve these reinvented chouquettes to customers.
In vain.
But the baker, who first got his hands dirty at 13 and a half years old in Normandy, ended up giving in a year after opening his first bakery in Grand Piquey, in 2007. After all, the customer is king , he will decide!
“We were already offering a chouquette to the little ones who entered the store.
I told him to make a grid and offer it to our best customers.
They came back with a big smile on their faces and asked for more
,” remembers Lucas Pascal.
The following Sunday,
Chez Pascal
sold three racks.
The recipe, since registered and named
“white dunes”
by an employee inspired by the eponymous name of the neighborhood, is all the rage.
No less than eight
Chez Pascal
brands now exist from Bordeaux to Bayonne, via Arcachon, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Paris.
On the peninsula, which has three points of sale, up to 8,000 sweets per day are devoured in summer, estimates Lucas Pascal.
In the summer, its stores triple their employees and employ up to 65 people.
At a rhythm of 20 minutes to cook the choux pastry, 15 minutes to make the cream whose success lies in the flick of the wrist and 20 minutes of cooking, the stoves heat from dawn to sunset, while the dunes whites are garnished over the water to be served
“always fresh”
.
Building on its triumph on the palate, the sweetness has also been declined in a range of flavors.
Draped in dark or white chocolate, nougatine or raspberry, the dunes of Grand Piquey are also a must-try.
Read alsoGironde: Sainte-Croix-du-Mont, this village which rests on astonishing cliffs of fossilized oysters
Family kindness
“I didn’t invent either the chouquette or the cream, which already existed, but we combined them
,” smiles Lucas Pascal.
Culinary weddings taken up and imitated in Gironde up to Vendays-Montalivet, where these white dunes become
white Qs
.
“It’s the price of glory.
If no one had copied, it would not have been good
,” the sixty-year-old, now retired, philosophizes.
And above all, he knows: no one can take away his experience.
Trained by extracting the best from his seasonal wanderings
“to the sea and the mountains”
, Lucas Pascal has honed his craft down to the smallest detail.
“Which work surface material do you knead the dough on, wood or stainless steel?
Depending on the terroir, the taste will not be the same.”
A know-how taught to his three sons, Brice, Christopher and Marceau, who continue the tradition.
A meticulousness and an inclination for noble raw materials stamped red label, which make the quality of
Chez Pascal,
according to Rémi Theillet, the manager of its production.
In terms of panache, the spirit of the house is appreciated throughout the coast.
“The Pascals are very family-oriented and attentive, they are like parents
,” confides the forty-year-old, formerly an employee in mass distribution.
“There is great mutual support.
There is no discussion behind the back, which is very rare.
So as we respect Pascal, we don't want to reveal the secret
(of the recipe for white dunes, Editor's note) ,
”
adds Élise Hamaide, 23, a former apprentice, now an employee.
Behind her, her replacement, 14 years old, spills part of her rack of canelés while sliding it onto the rolling cart.
“That’s how we learn,”
says Lucas Pascal
kindly
to Le Figaro
.
I am proud of my success, but above all I am proud of this big family.
We formed couples and there will be little children thanks to this bakery!”
And if you want to one day taste these white dunes like a connoisseur, don't forget to bite them upside down so as not to be splashed with whipped cream.