Tarte au Sucre

The same name, “sugar tart,” refers to different sweets in different regions. In Quebec, a thin pastry is filled with a rich filling of brown sugar and cream. In northern France, sugar is worked into the surface of a soft yeasted dough. In Belgium, some versions enclose a sweet filling between two layers of dough, top and bottom; while they all combine sugar and butterfat, the form of the sweet changes with the dough and the way the filling is enclosed.

Brown sugars, too, have different names and raw materials

Brown sugars differ by raw material and production method, even when they look similar in color. Cassonade, as the word is used in Quebec, is a brown sugar derived from sugarcane. Belgian tarts also use a soft brown sugar called “Cassonade Graeffe,” made by Sucres de Tirlemont. Ingredient names used locally overlap with product names.

Vergeoise, which appears in northern French recipes (the ingredient proportions and method), is a sugar made by reheating the syrup left over from refining. It comes in golden and brown types, and its raw material may derive from either sugar beet or sugarcane. This method, which puts the syrup left over from sugar refining to use again, adds a brown color and aroma to the tart’s surface.

In Quebec, sugar and cream are cooked and poured into the shell

When flour or cornstarch is mixed into brown sugar, cream is added, and the mixture is heated, a pourable liquid becomes a thickened filling. With maple syrup, the aroma of tree sap is added as well. Some recipes use eggs or vanilla, and the combination of eggs and starch changes how the filling sets and how the cut surface looks.

The shell that holds the filling is made of pâte brisée, a dough made by scattering cold butter finely through flour and bringing it together with liquid. It is rolled out thin, laid in the pan, and its edges are trimmed. In the method with eggs presented by RICARDO, the shaped shell is rested in the refrigerator, and the filling is cooked in a pot before being poured in. Besides baking the tart with an open top, thin strips of dough can be laid in a lattice so that the brown filling shows between the strips and the toastiness of baked dough is added.

A version made with maple is also eaten as a sweet at sugar shacks during the spring sugaring season. Maple sap harvesting and sugar shack meals are recorded as Quebec intangible cultural heritage. The tart is served warm or cold, as a sweet for enjoying the sweetness of maple harvested in spring. A recipe by a pastry chef at the Université de Montréal combines brown sugar with canned evaporated milk.

In northern France, sugar and butter are scattered into hollows in a yeasted dough

In Larousse’s northern French recipe, a soft dough is made with yeast, milk, eggs, and butter. It is gathered and rested, rolled out into a round, pressed with small hollows using the fingers, and rested once more. Vergeoise and small pieces of butter are scattered over it before baking; partway through, cream is poured over it and it goes back into the oven.

Rather than pouring a cooked filling into a shell as in Quebec, this method works sugar and butterfat into the surface of the dough. The risen, soft dough and the sweet parts gathered in the hollows can be enjoyed together. In this method, the soft yeasted dough makes up a large part of the sweet.

A northern French tarte au sucre, with hollows remaining in the baked surface. Photo: Jiel Beaumadier, 2011-03-10, northern France. Original image / CC BY-SA 3.0. Cropped by the original publisher. Downscaled version from the source host; no additional processing.

In Belgium, sometimes covered with a thin layer of dough

Waterloo, in Wallonia, also has a tart made with brown sugar as a local specialty. One example of a Belgian method is a two-crust recipe from Sucres de Tirlemont. A dough of yeast, eggs, milk, and butter is chilled, rolled out thin, and laid in the pan. Cassonade Graeffe and fine sugar are spread over it, a powder of equal parts almond flour and powdered sugar is sprinkled on, and cream is poured over.

It is then covered with another thin layer of dough, brushed with egg, topped with the remaining sugar and butter, rested, and baked. Unlike the northern French single layer, which places the sweetness on the surface of a yeasted dough, this version holds the filling between layers of dough.

In Quebec, a filling rich enough to slice is poured into a thin shell; in northern France, the sweetness gathers in the hollows of a soft dough. In the Belgian manufacturer’s example, two layers of dough enclose sugar and cream. Even when the same sugar and butterfat are used, the form and texture of the tart change with the fermentation of the dough, how the filling is cooked down, and how it is enclosed.

Glossary