Échaudé de la Brenne

The échaudé owes its name to hot water: its dough is 'scalded'—that is, plunged into boiling water—before being baked in the oven, resulting in a small, dry, triangular, golden biscuit that is more or less puffed up. Originally, it was merely water and flour, a biscuit of scarcity or Lent that the website Anecdotrip notes has been known since the Hundred Years' War; butter and eggs are added today.

Anecdotrip ranks échaudés amongst the oldest cakes in France. The Dictionnaire historique des institutions, mœurs et coutumes de la France finds mention of them in a 1202 charter from the cathedral of Paris, and recounts that in 1231 the widow Émeline received the right from the monks of Saint-Denis to come and collect a loaf of bread and an échaudé from their bakery on feast days. Saint Louis, who forbade bakers from doing any work on Sundays and feast days, nevertheless allowed them to bake them on those days for the poor. In the Centre region, the earliest known mention dates to 1240, at the abbey of Saint-Chéron, in Eure-et-Loir.

A blog post also reports that these pastries are said to have accompanied the crusaders as far as Palestine, because they could be kept for a very long time without losing their flavour.