Sugar tart: where to taste it at Christmas markets

The sugar tart is a tart from northern France with a brioche base, covered with vergeoise brown sugar or cassonade and butter, sometimes cream, before baking. At the Christmas markets of the north and Picardy, it is sold by the slice or whole, to take away, next to the brown sugar filled waffles and the bêtises de Cambrai.

Where to eat a sugar tart at a Christmas market

The markets that sell it are all in the north and in Picardy. Douai, Cambrai and Valenciennes offer it with bêtises de Cambrai, and Cambrai and Valenciennes with the brown sugar filled waffle. Roubaix, Béthune and Maubeuge sell it too, and Saint-Quentin, in Picardy, counts it among its market treats.

Lille, for its part, does not make the sugar tart its market speciality: there, that role goes to the brown sugar filled waffle.

Northern sugar tart: brown sugar, brioche and cream

The base is a brioche dough, dotted with pieces of butter and sprinkled with vergeoise before going into the oven. Some versions add cream. Vergeoise is a brown sugar drawn from the refining of beet or cane, widely used in the pastries of northern France and Belgium.

Two namesakes cause confusion. The tarte au sucre of Pérouges, in the Ain, and the Lyon tarte au sucre are different cakes: neither is the brioche tart of the north.