. “Her recipes are amazing! I sell a lot and I don’t have the right to run out »
Pastis just out of the oven, where it cooks for an hour and a half. The secret to their long-lasting softness is the powder used
Photo Les Sucrettes de Ketty
“Very good”, we confirm at the restaurant Les Roseaux, in Seignosse, which has combined for almost two years its best coffee, in small form. “His recipes are amazing! I sell a lot and I don’t have the right to run out,” liked Valérie Thomas, discovering small producers in Parentis, at her Lou Pot shop, dedicated to Landes gastronomy.
He is the one who speaks well about it. Let’s first draw the whole picture: on the one hand, airy pastis, leavened, which goes with brioche. On the other hand, traditional, dry, where you “sink” (wither) a little. Well, Ketty’s style “is something in the middle, explains Valérie Thomas. They are soft, not too dense. And the taste of the rum is perfect. Her shop offers ten boxes of mini-pastis “that work very well”.
Pastis ready for sale is a box of mini-pastis in the Lou Pot store in Parentis
Picture Lou Pot
Especially since this famous softness takes time, because of the secret of production. “You keep it at 19 or 20 degrees in its packaging or in an airtight box,” says Ketty Cochelin, whom Mag met at her home in Pouillon, where a room in her bedroom has been converted into a cake lab. . Inside, a technical oven with four levels that can take ten pastis every hour and a half. Yes, cooking is long. And the secret to softness? “It’s real powder. “We won’t know much.” Finally Yes. We will learn that actually in the beginning he was unable to be born cake.
Ketty Cochelin likes to create new flavors: her experiments fall into a large jar that she holds in her hands. When they open it, the sweet smell of butter comes out
Photo by Natacha Thuillier
Exasperated, Ketty Cochelin, who had just given birth to her second daughter, delved uncontrollably into YouTube cooking tutorials and discovered a passion for design (“cake design”). Gradually, he studied on his own, reading additional books – Amaury Guichon is still his main book. He, who was working as a cashier, then toyed with the idea of changing jobs. Alas, selling new cakes CAP is needed, and financial donations did not reach the young family.
Self-taught and a perfectionist
This is how Landaise (from Eure-et-Loir) turned to traveling cakes, a beautiful name for long-life cakes, with the help of her husband, who gave her his grandmother’s recipe. After the company Les Sucrettes de Ketty was created in 2019, the girl started shopping.
The beginnings were not easy, but Landais knew how to recognize a good pass when he met one and the reward was at the end of the road. Ketty Cochelin didn’t stop there, however. What he likes is creating new things, creating, experimenting. Even for a perfectionist, who is now 37 years old, he sometimes puts aside other ideas or puts them back. Therefore, in the face of an increase in raw materials and fuel, he had to close this summer his store opened a year ago in Habas.
Next to the family pastis, the creation has appeared, Choubidou, soft almond or hazelnut mini-balls, with very little sugar, usually served with coffee – this is the case at Les Roseaux in Seignosse. Then was born a whole host of shortbread and frank butter flavor, not very sweet, in a wide variety of flavors. “There are three babies out right now,” the pastry chef said with a big smile when we met in mid-September. Try three new flavors: “Apricot; rum-grapes; figs”. The fruit bothered him a lot.
The ingredients used in the recipes are simple. They are synonymous with “home”. A topping or garnish (here for bitter cocoa) is sometimes desired
Photo by Natacha Thuillier
Choubidoux (left) is a shortbread in the Lou Pot shop in Parentis
Picture Lou Pot
Several trials were also needed to create two recipes that are sold in the Lou Pot de Parentis store: Armagnac short bread with large sugar crystals inside, pine-shaped short bread with candy powder and pine juice. “I don’t count my hours,” admits Ketty Cochelin. Because, it is in nature, creating small groups, and in love (company, marriage …) that passion is fulfilled. Their latest discovery: pencil-shaped shortcakes to give at the end of the school year to teachers and masters. A great success.