Salted butter caramel: where to taste it at Christmas markets

Salted butter caramel is a confection of cooked sugar, cream and lightly salted butter, born in Brittany. At the Christmas markets of western France it is sold in bags of sweets or in jars of spread, at the Breton produce stall, between the kouign-amann and the cider, and it ends up in most baskets.

Where to buy salted butter caramel at a Christmas market

Brittany first. In Rennes, Quimper, Saint-Malo, Brest, Lorient, Saint-Brieuc and Locronan, the caramel sits next to the kouign-amann, crêpes, cider and chouchen. The stall is the full Breton larder: you will find the caramels by the bag and the spread by the jar.

In Nantes and Saint-Nazaire, it sits next to gâteau nantais, Guérande salt and muscadet. In Normandy, salted butter caramel has settled in at the Norman stall, with cider, teurgoule and cheeses: in Caen, on the Norman produce side, in Honfleur, Évreux and Alençon. Our guide to Christmas markets in Brittany locates the markets of the ports and towns where the caramel is part of the shopping.

Breton or Norman caramel: what the chalets sell

Salted butter is Breton for a tax reason: Brittany was exempt from the gabelle, the salt tax, hence the use of salted butter in the region’s cooking. Salted butter caramel follows from it. Today it exists in four forms: