Par
Daniel Chollet
Published on
Jan 17, 2025 at 6:06 p.m.
A new prize of excellence for Frédéric Gauthier, who won Thursday January 16 at the Bakery Housein Chesnay (Yvelines) on 1is prize of the regional almond galette competition 2025 organized by the federation of bakers.
After Sylvain Le Maux in 2023, boss of the bakery and pastry Aux Trois Petits choux in L'isle-Adam then Frédéric Boulay, from Beaumont-sur-Oise in 2024, it is therefore still a Valdoisian, Frédéric Gauthier, in Beauchamp (Val -d'Oise) who wins the prize and who naturally makes him proud.
“I finished second in the departmental competition for the best almond cake in Val-d’Oise,” recalls the president of the bakers of Val-d’Oise, boss of the Gauthier House, which has already won several prizes in recent years, such as that for the best traditional baguette in 2018, the prize for the best croissant in Île-de-France in 2022 (4th national ex-aequo) as well as a prize in pastry (tarte with lemon and éclair). And in this competition, there is no privilege or free pass: “it is not us who choose the competition cake but the organizer and each cake only has a number, we do not know who made it” .
A prize that does “a lot of good”
For the baker, a former chef, who retrained at the age of 50 by opening his bakery in Beauchamp in 2016, it is a prize that does “a lot of good”.
“This work is a daily challenge,” confides the craftsman, who, at almost 60 years old, has the desire to “always surpass himself, not to rest on his laurels. Especially in this profession where things change so much. You have to follow! The products change and we evolve with the raw materials.”
Frédéric Gauthier ensures that he works with “high-end” raw materials, whether in bakeries or pastries, without neglecting the ecological aspect by favoring proximity.
“I get my flour from the Moulins de Chars.”
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The secret of his galette des rois? The fruit of a “combination of circumstances”, he says.
An unfortunate car accident immobilized his vehicle in Corsica this summer and it was while coming to collect it that he had the idea of buying local almonds on site.
“I roasted them myself and therefore made my own powder, with a powerful taste. It paid off! »
“High-end” raw materials
The “inverted” puff pastry benefits from “good Aop Charente-Poitou butter”. When asked if the cake in the store is as good as the one in the competition, Frédéric assures that he “strives to make the same quality” and that customers “will not be disappointed”. The sale of Epiphany cakes started on 1is January and it will last the whole month and even into February.
The regional competition concerned the departments of Seine-et-Marne (77), Yvelines (78), Essonne (91) and Val-d'Oise. The first two in the departmental competition were automatically registered. “There is another regional competition for the inner suburbs and another for Paris,” specifies the Valdoisian craftsman
Maison Gauthier: 147, Chaussée Jules-César, 95250 Beauchamp.
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