Sugar pie

After having descended from the noble tables to the popular ones, sugar was in great demand. And when the blockade against the English cut off the supply of sugar from the colonies that passed through Dunkirk, Napoleon retaliated directly ! For lack of cane, the north will make with the beet. From that day on, its cooked juice transformed into vergeoise happily colonized the home-made desserts of the region. And the banal cream pie became a chuc’ pie.

With chuc’ yes, but not just any chuc’! The vergeoise is a sugar more moist and soft than the others. It is the only sugar that will melt into the dough to give it that cozy quilted look. Blonde for an addictive sweetness, brown for an extra caramel taste with a hint of bitterness. In addition to the taste, it plays on the fermentation by helping the brioche dough to rise and on the coloring by caramelizing during cooking. It is also what fuels our brain, titillates our taste buds and boosts our dopamine.

Even if it is a symbol of the flat country, the sugar pie is not hopelessly flat ! You can find some with shortcrust pastry (or even flaky pastry, sacrilege !), but only a risen pastry will give it its inimitable plumpness. After two times of pushing, we pierce it with the fingertips, just enough to bury small cubes of butter before powdering generously with vergeoise. And here is the work ! The Belgian and Quebec cousins add cream, egg and maple syrup. But this is really not reasonable…