Fallue, a sweet brioche from Normandy

Fallue is a delicious dessert made without kneading with eggs, milk, fresh yeast, sugar, flour, butter and fresh cream. Rich in taste but not that sugary, this sweet brioche from Normandy is usually eaten with teurgoule, a rice pudding that is cooked for at least five hours and has an incredible caramelised crust. Fallue is such an important thing in Normandy that there is even an association, created in 1978 to guaranty the quality of this Norman dessert.

Crown effect    

Fallue is a traditional dessert that has a very characteristic shape. Flat and oval, this brioche is cut with scissors on the top to create the recognizable crown effect. This brioche used to be eaten in Normandy for Epiphany, before it was replaced completely with the Galette des rois, a cake made from puff pastry and stuffed with frangipane and even with chocolate, cream and apples. Today, in Normandy, fallue is very much associated with another local dessert – teurgoule.  And for a good reason. The Norman brioche goes marvelously with this delicious rice pudding. If you are wondering what does fallue means exactly, you should know that the name of this sweet brioche comes from the Norman language and the word “falle” which means – “tube” and probably refers to the shape of Fallue.

Recipe

The recipe is more than simple. Fallue is made with eggs, milk, fresh yeast, sugar, flour, butter and fresh cream. And that is all. In a big salad bowl, you should put the flour, and then add the butter, cream and eggs. Those ingredients should be stirred with your hands to make a smooth paste before you add the yeast and sugar. But the next stage is a little bit complicated. To prepare this soft and unctuous cake, the dough needs to be raised twice. The best thing is to prepare the dough the day before and leave it overnight in the refrigerator. In the morning, the dough needs to rise for the second time in a cool but not too cold room. After decorating it with scissors, fallue is baked in the oven for some 20 to 30 minutes.

Mamie Normandie

If you want to taste the best fallue ever, then you should look for the “Mamie Normandie” brioche. Situated in Bayeux, a Norman city, this company is making handmade fallue, a sweet brioche from Normandy only with fresh and high-quality ingredients, without colorants or artificial flavours. They are using nothing but good mill flour, free-range eggs from Normandy, as well as local butter and cream. And of course, their fallue is more than delicious.