A rosé biscuit from Reims to accompany your glass of champagne ?

In any occasion, our Envie de Champagne comes with a desire of a special sweet, a speciality of Champagne : the Rose Biscuit de Reims.

This rose rectangle finds its origin in 1690, when bakers from the city of Reims used to make use of the bread’s oven heat to cook paste made of eggs, flour and sugar. It was baked a first time, then a second time, very slowly, getting colder in the same time of the oven. At the time, people said it was cooked twice, a « bis-cuit ».

This biscuit was originally white, but bakers decided to add vanilla, but the little black grains of the vanilla looked like « dirt » in the paste. To avoid this, they decided to tint the paste with carmin, a red dye extracted from an insect: the cochineal. On the top, it is white due to the added powdered icing sugar just before cooking : the Reims rose-tinted biscuit was born !

The receipt and production method hasn’t changed since the beginning, and Maison Fossier, the oldest biscuit factor founded in 1756, is the last company that continues to produce the Rose Biscuit de Reims with a double cooking. This original receipt hasn’t changed since 300 years and still offers a crunchy pleasure around an icing sugar coat. Its peculiarity is to not falling apart when it is immersed in the rustle of champagne bubbles.

In 2012, Maison G.H. Mumm and Maison Fossier created an elegant and unique tasting box, « Légende de Rosé », which contained a bottle of G.H.Mumm Brut Rosé, 2 champagne flutes and a box of mini Biscuits Rose de Reims from Maison Fossier.

This never ending pleasure is also used in various dessert recipe, such as the Charlotte with black chocolate mousse, a tiramisu, or depending on the season: a rhubarb crumble and rose biscuits. It is also possible to ice it as per the Champenoise tradition with a receipt based on marc of champagne.

The famous Mercotte, jury of the M6 TV show « The best Pastry Chef » created violeta biscuits served in a verrine, and topped with strawberry pulp and pistachio.

For the record, French Kings enjoyed this Biscuit de Reims before going to bed, the day before coronations, to have a « quiet and relaxing night »! The day of coronation in the cathedral of Reims, future Kings were greeted with baskets full of biscuits, including the famous rose. Painter Paul Cézanne contributed to the fame of this biscuit too, in creating 5 still-life paintings in which we can notice the small rectangular biscuit.

This kind of little marvelous sweet contributes to happiness and to see through rose colored glasses » said Jean-Louis Vogt, the Boss of Café du Palais in Reims. This unique sweet is produced every year around 30 million of 12 pieces box. This product of terroir even entered into the Little Larousse in 2018, the famous french dictionary.