Sweet Success: How a French Family Turned Traditional Biscuits into a Thriving Business

Steve Turnbull meets the young couple who have turned a family recipe for buttery, delicately scented biscuits into a thriving business…

The French love their biscuits almost as much as their cheese. But few are as pretty as Les Escalettes de Montpellier, made by charming young couple Adrien and Perrine, from Hérault. They come in a tempting range of flavours and they happen to have a very touching story behind them. The biscuits are dry waffles, a wafer-like treat known as escaleta in the Occitanie region, where they’ve been made since medieval times. They bear a floral motif dating from the 19th century which was cast onto the waffle iron used by Mamie Alix, Adrien’s grandmother. It was she who handed down the recipe to the couple, although she never imagined where this would lead.

In 2019, the couple took a career-changing leap of faith and began production in Saint-Saturnin-de-Lucian, Adrien’s home village. Initially using Mamie Alix’s waffle iron, they quickly realised that, to be commercially viable, they needed to upscale their operation. So they invested in some new equipment for their workshop, including a custom-made waffle iron from Belgium, and now make eight escalettes at a time instead of one, resulting in more than 20,000 a month.

The production process is fairly simple. First, they make a big ball of dough, to which the flavouring is added. That is then left to rest for an hour or two before being fed into a machine that shapes it into small squares of just the right quantity. Afterwards, Adrien rolls these into sausage shapes and Perrine places them on the waffle iron, where they’re squashed flat and baked over a gas flame (a more efficient technique than the fireplace Mamie Alix used to use). She turns them once every 30 seconds or so to ensure they’re done evenly on both sides – in fact, the word biscuit comes from the French bi-cuit, or twice-cooked. Beautifully imprinted, they’re then left to cool on racks before being packaged.

Award-winning flavours

If you’re lucky enough to find yourself wandering the streets outside, the smell of freshly-baked biscuits is heavenly. And the taste is even better. They’re richly buttery but not overly sweet and the flavour is subtle rather than full-on-more of a biscuit to be savoured than munched down. They’re very crisp and about the size of a hand, so you can snap bits off and dunk them in your tea or coffee if you wish. As well as crowd-pleasing chocolate and vanilla flavours, you can choose the traditional saveurs du Sud: lemon, anise and, the most popular, orange blossom. In autumn and winter, the couple make limited-edition cinnamon and honey versions. You can buy the biscuits online in individual packets priced at €5.90 (plus postage and packing) or a tasting box of 20 in four different flavours – perfect for moments of indulgence or as a gift.

Saint-Saturnin-de-Lucian, which lies at the heart of Hérault, has something of a lost-in-time feel and is surrounded by vineyards -there are several organic winemakers from the Terrasses du Larzac appellation based here as well as a large cooperative. There’s also a well-reputed restaurant in the centre, Le Pressoir, serving traditional dishes. Les Escalettes de Montpellier, tucked away in a backstreet behind the church, has helped to put the village on the culinary map.

To continue the story about Mamie Alix, she made escalettes regularly for the family, just as generations before had, and they were often enjoyed in the holiday season with a glass of Carthagène (a local vin de liqueur) or white wine. When Adrien met Perrine, he introduced her to them and it was love at first bite. Not long after, the idea for the business was born and, as the orders came in, Mamie Alix’s initial scepticism turned to proud support. “She used to sit in the square outside the workshop with her ‘magic box’, offering samples of the biscuits to passers-by,” says Adrien.

A family affair

Not surprisingly, the main market for the escalettes – “our Proust madeleine” – is local (you can buy them from multiple outlets). But thanks to several awards (including a prestigious one for their orange blossom biscuits) and plenty of media coverage, the business now sells its products widely in France and even abroad, the UK included.

The challenge now for the couple is to expand without compromising their artisanal values and work-life balance. They plan to employ a small team of people so they can focus on management and marketing, and to renovate their stone agricultural shed nearby. As Perrine says: “Like this, we can welcome a few more visitors who can see us working. taste and buy directly on site.”

But why did the couple choose Montpellier for the name? Hérault’s bustling capital is just half an hour’s drive away so it made sense from a branding perspective to exploit the connection. But it’s also the site of the last working mill in the region, from which the couple source their flour. In the villages of Cournonterral and Canet near Saint-Saturnin, they also keep the escalettes tradition alive by making them at festival time. The biscuits are not to be confused with their cousin, the croseta, though, which is smaller and shaped like a Languedoc cross.

Sadly, Mamie Alix passed away recently, but her memory lives on. “We no longer hear the sound of her cane in the workshop,” says Adrien, “but we keep her alive every day with our escalettes, and we hope to for a very long time to come!” When asked if there’s a secret ingredient in the recipe, Perrine pauses for a moment, then, with a wink and a smile, says “amour”. No doubt Mamie Alix would approve.

lesescalettes.fr

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Lead photo credit : Pretty in pink - a box of Escalette biscuits ©Steve Turnbull