Merveilleux

Dry meringues are joined with cream, the outside is also coated with cream, and shavings of chocolate are pressed on. The merveilleux of Belgium and northern France is a pastry that layers egg-white foam with dairy cream or butter cream. It ranges from small single servings to large versions made to be sliced. It offers three textures: meringue that crumbles crisply, cream that melts smoothly in the mouth, and chocolate that breaks into thin flakes and melts.

Joining meringues with cream and covering the outside

Two meringues baked as discs or hemispheres are joined with cream, and the top and sides are also spread with cream. When shaved chocolate is applied, irregularly overlapping flakes cover the white meringue. The parts in contact with the cream absorb moisture and soften, while the inside keeps the crisp bite of the meringue. Dry meringue and a finished pastry assembled with fresh cream have different storage requirements. Vaucamps’s specialty shops make small merveilleux by hand at each location and recommend refrigerating them after purchase and eating them within 24 hours. The texture also changes depending on how much time passes between assembly and eating.

In Belgium, some versions use fresh cream whipped with sugar or vanilla and are decorated with candied cherries. Chocolatier Pierre Marcolini recalls his mother’s Sunday pastry as two meringues, vanilla whipped cream and plenty of shaved chocolate.

In northern France there are also related pastries such as the “boule choco,” assembled into a ball or hemisphere with chocolate buttercream, which melts in the mouth with more richness than versions made with whipped fresh cream. Both types of cream are still chosen by artisans today.

A merveilleux covered in cream and chocolate flakes. Photo: Eeicing, 2013-01-22, location unknown. Original image / CC BY-SA 4.0. Downscaled version from the source, no additional processing.

The Astridje tradition, said to be named after Queen Astrid

Around Mechelen, the pastry of meringue and whipped cream is also called Astridje. Local storyteller Eric Creve relates that Queen Astrid took a liking to it when visiting a textile workshop, and that the pastry shop Van Uytven asked for permission to give it her name.

This is a naming tradition preserved locally. The name Astridje still appears in Belgian pastry shops today, and the name evoking the queen continues to be handed down.

Vaucamps’s refinement of the method and the spread of specialty shops

Frédéric Vaucamps reworked the regional pastry in the 1980s. He replaced the buttercream with Chantilly and adjusted the bite and the melt through Italian meringue, made by pouring hot sugar syrup into whipped egg whites, and two-stage baking. He changed not only the type of cream but also how the meringue is whipped and baked.

In the late 1990s he opened the shop “Aux Merveilleux de Fred” in Lille, and his shops later spread abroad as well. He does not claim to be the inventor, saying instead that he popularized an existing pastry with his own recipe (ingredient proportions and method). Hazebrouck also has a shop tradition that runs from Maison Mouille to Pâtisserie Plume.

Modern versions with different creams and decorations

Some versions combine coffee or speculoos cream, white chocolate flakes, fruit or nuts. One of Marcolini’s creations places a chocolate disc on top of the meringue and hides fruit or praline inside the cream. Even when they depart from the form of two meringues joined with cream, the contrasting textures of dry meringue, smooth cream and chocolate remain.

The meaning of the name and the design of the specialty shops

Merveilleux means “marvelous.” As with Astridje and boule choco, the name also varies by locality and style. What Vaucamps’s shops draw on for names such as “Incroyable” and for their decor is the fashion of the Directory period at the end of the 18th century. When the pastry originated is unclear, and this is kept distinct from the era that the shops’ design represents.

A Sunday pastry carried to New York

In one example, an artisan raised in Belgium recreated the Sunday taste of childhood in New York. Eaten not only on festive days but also after meals or in the afternoon, the pastry has been carried abroad together with the food customs of home.

Glossary